Even Old New York was once Nieuw Amsterdam
You all might remember how I was on a map kick a few months back; well, for most of those books I had to order them from the library so it was a slow trickle, and now it's finally all done.
Mapping New York
published by Black Dog Publishing
I had heard good things about this book, and it's not without cause-it has a lot going for it. But first, let's get the crap out of the way.
A bunch of the captions don't seem to actually apply to the map they accompany, describing something different than what's on the page. Some of the captions editorialize, either about the design of the map or what the map depicts. One would be acceptable, but not both, as that makes the book schizophrenic. They might even get a few details wrong; one page I'm looking at now say there are no more clubs around 40th Street, but as someone who worked in the area, I can tell you that's outright wrong. They just moved a few blocks. The book includes some aerial photographs, which though neat, are *not* maps. They included a photo of an iPhone with Google Maps on it, instead of maybe showing how the map worked. It's kind of pointless. They also include more maps than I wanted to see from one particular map maker, which makes me think either they're friends with the guy, or they had trouble getting permission from all the makers of the maps they really wanted to use.
Wow, that's more than I expected. But on to the good things: everything else. The book is large and as such, many of the reproduced maps are easy to see. There are plenty of maps you can't see, but since they start to seem repetitive after a while, this might not be an issue. They organize the maps for the most part by usage, or rather, what they depict, so there's "history of the city," "servicing the city," "living the city," and "imagining the city." The section with the most variety is probably the "living" section. The "imagining" section is pretty interesting too, though it also has a few artistic clunkers. The best maps were the ones that were actually used for something, and weren't just some artist wanking off on an printed map with paint and pen.
My favorite maps were the 1958 subway map, this 2008 Walkman ad by Saatchi and Saatchi (which I've seen before, but only online in images that were too small to read, they also did other cities' systems), and this geographical text history of Manhattan by Howard Horowitz from 1997. Large file sizes, so you can read the details (though the Walkman map didn't come out that well).
Also, I wish people would stop wetting themselves over how awesome the Vignelli subway map from 1972 was. It wasn't, and New Yorkers had good reason to hate it.
Mapping New York
published by Black Dog Publishing
I had heard good things about this book, and it's not without cause-it has a lot going for it. But first, let's get the crap out of the way.
A bunch of the captions don't seem to actually apply to the map they accompany, describing something different than what's on the page. Some of the captions editorialize, either about the design of the map or what the map depicts. One would be acceptable, but not both, as that makes the book schizophrenic. They might even get a few details wrong; one page I'm looking at now say there are no more clubs around 40th Street, but as someone who worked in the area, I can tell you that's outright wrong. They just moved a few blocks. The book includes some aerial photographs, which though neat, are *not* maps. They included a photo of an iPhone with Google Maps on it, instead of maybe showing how the map worked. It's kind of pointless. They also include more maps than I wanted to see from one particular map maker, which makes me think either they're friends with the guy, or they had trouble getting permission from all the makers of the maps they really wanted to use.
Wow, that's more than I expected. But on to the good things: everything else. The book is large and as such, many of the reproduced maps are easy to see. There are plenty of maps you can't see, but since they start to seem repetitive after a while, this might not be an issue. They organize the maps for the most part by usage, or rather, what they depict, so there's "history of the city," "servicing the city," "living the city," and "imagining the city." The section with the most variety is probably the "living" section. The "imagining" section is pretty interesting too, though it also has a few artistic clunkers. The best maps were the ones that were actually used for something, and weren't just some artist wanking off on an printed map with paint and pen.
My favorite maps were the 1958 subway map, this 2008 Walkman ad by Saatchi and Saatchi (which I've seen before, but only online in images that were too small to read, they also did other cities' systems), and this geographical text history of Manhattan by Howard Horowitz from 1997. Large file sizes, so you can read the details (though the Walkman map didn't come out that well).
Also, I wish people would stop wetting themselves over how awesome the Vignelli subway map from 1972 was. It wasn't, and New Yorkers had good reason to hate it.