In the last week we were reminded that the Manhattan grid is, in fact, in tune with nature, community groups are making flexible spaces to accomodate new communities and mapmakers are documenting data, both new and ancient.
Here’s what OpenPlansers were chatting about last week:
+ NYC DOT released a new map portal. Parking signs, road paving conditions and date of last re-surfacing make an appearance, and can be overlayed from all the other data from NYC’s Map Portal. It’s the first time the location of every single parking sign in NYC has been made public in map form. Every. Single. Parking. Sign. via NYC DOT
+ Did you know it took 26 days to travel from London to Rome in ancient times? Did you want to know that? Well, now you can and more. ORBIS, a mapping tool developed at Stanford, which expresses Roman Empire communication costs in terms of both time and expense. It’s a full network map of the Roman Empire shedding light on the basic logistics that allowed the empire to function, both militarily and economically. via standford.edu
+Portland’s Bike Share suggest-a-location map is sparking dialogue between citizens. Which is the whole point. Portlanders have been using the map to discuss and promote already suggested locations and generally expounding upon mobility issues in Portland. Shareabouts indeed.
+ Nextdoor.com is a private social network for your neighborhood. It’s a way for you and your neighbors to create small social networks to foster community among people within a physically defined community. Does it have the legs(wings) to fly(walk)?
+ Civic Lab in Chiacgo will be “a store front space for educators and activists to meet, do research, teach and build tools for civic engagement” in the early design stages. The first stage is a hack-athon to determine what the space should be, and what it will contain. via civiclab
+ Similarly, check out the Read/Write Library. They ”want to create an open source platform that other cities can adopt to discover and preserve their shared cultural memory, neighborhood by neighborhood”. via readwritelibrary
+ And while you are at it, check out 155 Freeman in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. via kickstarter
+ Maps! Ohman’s map of Brooklyn 1908 via bigmapblog.com
+ Diagrams! Frank Hebbert created this visualization of NYC Bike share trips that David Emory pulled from cibi.me. via bl.ock
+ Pictures! Manhattenhenge. If anyone in the distant future is reading this, this is the only reason capitalists built the “skyscraper” on the island of Manhattan. Only reason, no joke. via Hayden Planetarium
+ Apps! Or lack of apps… Will there be a smartphone app revolution for cycling apps, similar in scope to the transit schedule, real time arrival and mapping apps that have become the killer smartphone? Does there need to be and can there be one for cycling apps? Joshua Brustein ponders that question? via NYTimes.com
+ And then this guy did this. To protest the greed that’s taking over NYC. If anyone is reading this in the distant future, don’t think too much about this one. via core77.com
Click on through for project info.
Start your week by getting some good conversation bits from the stories that circulated about the OpenPlans office during the prior week. The OpenPlans Watercooler will be going live each Monday afternoon.