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October 1, 2015 8:16 AM   Subscribe

"In August we asked readers to settle age-old disputes and draw where their neighborhoods begin and end. More than 12,000 New Yorkers responded, drawing maps in more than 280 neighborhoods and giving us a pretty detailed look at the local geography."
posted by griphus (27 comments total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
The interface is a bit weird, but you can scroll down in the box under the map to filter results by how long the map-drawers have lived in the neighborhood.
posted by griphus at 8:17 AM on October 1, 2015


the only neighborhoods i could do with any kind of accuracy were the west village and the lower east side. if someone said "hell's kitchen starts on 29th street" i'd be like "sure that seems reasonable".
posted by poffin boffin at 8:31 AM on October 1, 2015


Kind of shocked that NYC only has 280 neighborhoods, that seems so low for a city that big.
posted by octothorpe at 8:31 AM on October 1, 2015


"Starlord: Galaxy. Superman: Earth. Spiderman: NYC. And then there's Daredevil micromanaging the shit out of 10 blocks in midtown Manhattan." - Justin Guarini
posted by griphus at 8:39 AM on October 1, 2015 [9 favorites]


Damnit, double. Griphus beat me.
posted by Fizz at 8:39 AM on October 1, 2015


nerrrrds
posted by poffin boffin at 8:41 AM on October 1, 2015 [2 favorites]


Netflix Presents: Marvel's Daredevil of Hell's Kitchen
Daredevil busts an unscrupulous apartment broker trying to claim that Hell’s Kitchen extends all the way to 6th Avenue, which is past Broadway. It doesn’t; 8th Avenue is its eastern boundary. The broker is beaten savagely. Commenters on Curbed are wildly enthusiastic.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 8:45 AM on October 1, 2015 [3 favorites]


Seems like a lot of Morris Park people are claiming to be Pelham Parkway. Not that I blame them, of course.
posted by Capt. Renault at 8:55 AM on October 1, 2015 [3 favorites]


Where's Fox Hills?
posted by I-baLL at 9:04 AM on October 1, 2015


That was the most perplexing thing about Daredevil - the ludicrous idea that everything (vigilantes, exploding warehouses, unsolved crimes with amazing amounts of available evidence) could happen in such a small area.
posted by grumpybear69 at 9:05 AM on October 1, 2015


WiViKen
posted by griphus at 9:06 AM on October 1, 2015


I've lived at three addresses in New York and not a single one of them is in a clearly defined neighborhood on that map.

The ones in Astoria and Forest Hills are definitely arguable (bordering on Woodside and Corona, respectively), but goddamnit the third is Bushwick.

East !&*(%$#^$ Williamsburg is a fantasy created by hipsters and real estate agents.
posted by elsietheeel at 9:11 AM on October 1, 2015


I'm just glad they're still calling it Hell's Kitchen—for a while it looked like the RealtorsTM were going to succeed in dumping that fine old moniker down the memory hole.

Great idea for a map, thanks for posting it!
posted by languagehat at 9:11 AM on October 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


East Williamsburg is a real thing, but not when a broker says it. Are they still using it as a euphemism for Bushwick? I thought it has been Very Acceptable for people who care about such things to live in Bushwick for the last decade or so.
posted by griphus at 9:14 AM on October 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


Big version of the map.
posted by I-baLL at 9:14 AM on October 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


It's amazing how tight some of them are, like Alphabet City, and others, like Chinatown, are all over the place.

City Hall is not in Chinatown. Never has been.
posted by Capt. Renault at 9:28 AM on October 1, 2015


A lot of the weirdness about Hell's Kitchen was resolved for me when I learned two things

1) is your company transfers you to NYC and sets you up with housing, nine out of ten times its in Hell's Kitchen

2) it has the highest density of in-call male sex workers in the city.

On the other side it's Housing Works charity shop is one of the best curated for mensware.
posted by The Whelk at 9:28 AM on October 1, 2015 [3 favorites]


Totally true that Hudson Heights is a neighborhood that is also Washington Heights.
posted by kokaku at 9:44 AM on October 1, 2015


East Williamsburg is a place. It does not contain the places that were shown to me as being in East Williamsburg when I was apartment hunting 8 years ago.

Also, I am disappointed that they labeled East Gowanus inaccurately.
posted by Hactar at 10:14 AM on October 1, 2015 [2 favorites]


I've spent a lot of time in New York, but I've never lived there, so I don't really have strongly held opinions on where the borders ought to be. But one thing that's interesting is that, in the neighbourhoods I am most familiar with, I seem to be on board with a lot of people, but there are a large number who think the neighbourhoods are quite a bit larger than I would have thought believable.

The Lower East Side is a great example of this.

> It's amazing how tight some of them are, like Alphabet City, and others, like Chinatown, are all over the place.

I think these two examples come down to two different things. Alphabet City's borders are essentially determined by its name. Chinatown, on the other hand, has steadily grown. You can see how much smaller people who have lived there 20+ years think it is by using the filter below the map.
posted by 256 at 11:10 AM on October 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


Kind of shocked that NYC only has 280 neighborhoods, that seems so low for a city that big.

Some of the buildings are really tall.
posted by edbles at 2:11 PM on October 1, 2015 [2 favorites]


Daredevil's map of NYC
posted by Sangermaine at 2:15 PM on October 1, 2015 [6 favorites]


I wanted to see the map for Spanish Harlem, which may be the most-disputed in the five boroughs, but it's not even on there.

Also interesting to see the long-timers in Williamsburg include so much south of Broadway and few of the newcomers do.
posted by Mo Nickels at 4:05 PM on October 1, 2015


Dumbo is very small for long-timers and very big for newcomers. A lot of that has to be real estate marketing, right?
posted by Mo Nickels at 4:06 PM on October 1, 2015


On second thought, I realize that when I say "Chinatown has steadily grown" it is also because its extent is largely determined by it's name. The borders of Chinatown, at least if it's anything like the Chinatowns in other cities I have lived in, is primarily determined by residents as: "The area surrounding the historic centre of Chinatown extending as far as street signage continues to be primarily in Chinese."

If someone said "Williamsburg has steadily grown" they'd have to point to much more subtle wealth/demographic cues.

Now that that's out there, I have to wonder how much longer it will be before Chinatown and Chinatown East merge in Toronto.
posted by 256 at 4:08 PM on October 1, 2015


Zero people drew a map for Hollis?
posted by klausman at 5:30 PM on October 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


Bostonography has been letting residents map their Boston neighborhoods for a couple years now.
posted by adamg at 7:10 PM on October 1, 2015


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