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A Projected Relief Park Map of the United States – The Washington Times, March 28, 1897
|| 11/26/2009 || 3:54 pm || 1 Comment Rendered || ||
Yesterday I found this unique map that was published by the Washington Times on Sunday, March 28th, 1897 in the Library of Congress / National Endowment for the Humanities “Chronicling America Collection.” Its rather amazing how this portion of the National Mall was ultimately developed! Where would Alaska & Hawaii have been added? With today being Thanksgiving, I am giving thanks to the fact that some maps were never made.
Scans & transcription of the article below:
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As predicted, Russia Today continues to promote 9/11 Conspiracy Theories on the 8th Anniversary of 9/11
|| 9/14/2009 || 11:09 pm || + Render A Comment || ||
As I predicted last week, Russia Today continued their somewhat unusual promotion of the 9/11 Truth Movement during the 8th anniversary of 9/11. Instead of producing one or two news reports, which I expected (specifically one about the Van Jones resignation), the news organization produced no less than seven in the last week. On the flip side, there wasn’t many other articles or videos produced by any of the major news organizations in the same period that address the questions surrounding the world changing event. As I posited last week, I am still curious as to why Russia Today continues to be the only news organization covering this contentious topic. Does the Russian government believe in the conspiracy theory? Does the Russian government hope to destabilize America by producing propaganda that makes American’s question the official story? I still don’t know, but I think its important to understand why no other news organization, privately owned or state sponsored, is aggressively reporting this issue as much as Russia Today.
Below are the YouTube videos Russia Today produced in the last week:
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An Act for establishing the Temporary and Permanent seat of the Government of the United States
|| 2/24/2009 || 12:35 pm || Comments Off on An Act for establishing the Temporary and Permanent seat of the Government of the United States || ||
For last month or so I’ve been adding historic pieces of legislation here on my blog. The aim here, and the general aim of this blog, is to keep an ongoing, on-line journal that features things that I’m either interested in or things that I have created. Historic pieces of legislation related to the District of Columbia fall into the former category, and today’s entry is the text & scans of the act that established the Temporary (Philadelphia) and Permanent Seat of the Government of the United States in a “district of territory” that would eventually become named the District of Columbia.
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Commission: Yankee Stadium Quilt
|| 12/19/2008 || 1:51 pm || Comments Off on Commission: Yankee Stadium Quilt || ||
At the beginning of the week I received an inquiry about making this map. It’s intended to be a gift for the client’s friend who’s a big Yankees fan. I was unsure if I’d be able to obtain the newest imagery featuring the new Yankee stadium, but since the client felt the friend had spent more time in the old stadium, the newest of the imagery was not an issue. I went with .5 meters per pixel imagery from April, 2006. There was a second set of imagery of the area at lower spatial resolution, but I liked the coloring on this imagery better and went with it. This is my first map of the Bronx borough of New York City and for 2009 I am planning on mapping the rest of the boroughs.
Like my previous commission I was able to modify the source aerial photography so that the nearby outdoor track has been converted into a heart. I debated on modifing the coloration so that the pinkness of the heart (below) would be more pronounced, but I opted to follow my current style of non-modification. Yet this inclusion of the heart motif is something that I find to be an unique addition to my current map design. I am adjusting the imagery to not only create a geometrically perfect design, but literally adding a bit of love to it. An aerial landscape design of love, so to speak.
There is also a sense of transition in this map. By the varying degree of translational symmetry placed upon the the actual stadium, there appears to be an architectural metamorphosis taking place. Where the old stadium is becoming a new stadium. And some day in the future, when it’s time that I make the next map of Yankee Stadium, with newer contemporary imagery, it will be a new stadium. But will the heart (track) still be there in the future? Will development change the love of the geography? I don’t think so. Yet in making this map for the client, I’ve captured the love between two people (and probably thousands of others) that will never change.
Unlike my previous commissioned map, which was printed at 32″x48″ on stretched canvas, this Hexagon Quilt Project map will be printed a bit smaller at 10″x16″ on Hahnemuhle Fine Art Pearl paper. If you are interested in obtaining a custom map, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
View the Google Map of Yankee Stadium in the Bronx
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The microphone flag I designed makes an appearance
|| 10/29/2008 || 8:55 pm || Comments Off on The microphone flag I designed makes an appearance || ||
Back in August before I went to Denver to help cover the Democratic National Convention, Liz Glover asked me to design microphone flags for the Huffington Post, Radar Magazine, and Blackbook Magazine. The idea behind making these microphone flags was that she’d be able to change the flags on her microphone before interviewing people for the different news organizations. It adds an extra sense of legitimacy to any reporter in the field and it genuinely looks more professional.
On Monday she went up to New York City to cover the opening of Steve Lewis’ new club Aspen Social for Blackbook Magazine. In the video above I spotted the Blackbook microphone flag that I designed for the first time. Judging by the success of the interview, I hope to see that flag more often.
By the way, did you see what happened to that same microphone in Minnesota? I’m still laughing at that dog named Sarah.
Manhattan & Brooklyn Bridge Quilt
|| 6/7/2008 || 6:12 pm || Comments Off on Manhattan & Brooklyn Bridge Quilt || ||
Yesterday I went through all my 2008 entries and began to compile this year’s maps like I’ve done for previous years. However, this year I decided to expand the listing to include designs & animations that I’ve made.
The rationale for this expansion was rather simple: if these yearly listings are to be aggregates of my creative work, they might as well include everything. I’m a bit tepid about going through the previous years to find creations that I might have missed, but I imagine that I’ll get around to doing it. Also, since this website has gone public, I’ve found myself sharing content that I did not create and this makes it more difficult to decipher what I’ve created and what I have found on-line & decided to share here.
Today’s creation is the start of a new series of New York City maps that I expect to make in the coming days. This morning I discovered that the USGS has released newer imagery of New York City that was taken in March of 2006.
However, as with other imagery, I’ve found that the older imagery is of better quality. Its not that this new imagery is fuzzy or not as sharp, but rather I found the coloration to be more subdued. The 2004 imagery, which I used to produce all of my previous New York City maps, is more vivid and the colors just look nicer. With that issue aside, I’ve made a few different tessellations that I’m going to be using for the next set of maps of New York City.
This map shows the Manhattan Bridge and the Brooklyn Bridge, as well as a tiny portion of Brooklyn and a larger portion of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. I tried a few different Quilt projection shapes and finally settled on using the Diamond Quilt Projection because I like the way the bridges create a square box within the diamond layout. I have made a derivative tessellation of this map, but I think I’m going to use some of the other imagery first.
View the Google Map of the Manhattan & Brooklyn Bridges.
View the rest of the map’s close-up details:
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Animated Map Showing the History of New York City’s Subway System
|| 4/11/2008 || 7:12 pm || Comments Off on Animated Map Showing the History of New York City’s Subway System || ||
Pretty fun to watch. I’d like to make one of Washington, DC, but don’t have the data.
The closest I’ve made to this map would be the Google Maplet of the 1880 Street Railway Map of the City of Washington. Click here for more information about the system’s history.
Albany Droste Quilt
|| 3/31/2008 || 3:49 pm || Comments Off on Albany Droste Quilt || ||
I’ve made similar Droste-like maps before that are multi-scalar, but this is the first to follow “rules” involved in creating the Droste Effect. To achieve this effect I cut out an octagon out of the center of the map and pasted a 34% reduced duplicate of the map within the octagon. This recursive process allows for multiple internal repetitions because the source map is very large in size (216 megapixels).
View the Google Map of downtown Albany, New York.
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Vassar Quilt
|| 3/26/2008 || 5:18 pm || Comments Off on Vassar Quilt || ||
Continuing my ongoing project of mapping various colleges, schools, and universities around the United States, I decided to follow-up Mount Holyoke College with Vassar College. According to the metadata, the aerial photography was taken in 2004, scanned at 1 foot per pixel in early 2006, and released to the public in December, 2006. I have prepared another tessellation for Vassar and will make a derivative follow-up map.
View the Google Map of Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York.
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Cities & Nature is now available
|| 1/5/2008 || 1:35 pm || Comments Off on Cities & Nature is now available || ||
I look forward to seeing my copy when it arrives! The book cover uses my map of Central Park in New York City. From the screen grab above, the final design looks a bit greener than the original map, but I won’t know until I see my copy. Regardless, I genuinely look forward to reading it instead of fussing over the colors. What’s inside is what counts!
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