A Time-Honored Tradition

August 11, 2015 2:27 PM

Draw Where You Think Your [NYC] Neighborhood Borders Are on This Map
posted by griphus (39 comments total)

This is what I came up with. Smaller than most, but not the person who thought the Upper West Side was like six blocks.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 2:32 PM on August 11, 2015

This would be great to extend to other large cities. I have no interest in NYC, but it would be cool to see what type of neighborhoods tend to have residents that describe their local area more expansively.
posted by demiurge at 2:42 PM on August 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

Woah! They moved Central Park up there?
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 2:45 PM on August 11, 2015

It's interesting how people digress. I've done a few of the neighborhoods I've lived in, and there are some interesting patterns. People's borders for Fort Greene seem to be two interlocking rectangles, where some people think it starts and ends further north and some people think it starts and ends further south, but nobody really extending it from all the way south to all the way north. Prospect Heights, of course, represents the classic argument over where the eastern edge of the neighborhood is - though the "Washington Avenue Is The Border" crowd seems way heavier here than they are IRL in my experience (also, as usual, they're dead wrong - Classon, maybe, but Washington? Really?)

And Morningside Heights is about as much a complicated mess as you would think.
posted by Itaxpica at 2:46 PM on August 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

Also, a screenshot for the Prospect Heights debate. Interesting that three of the four borders are basically universal; I guess being bounded by three major avenues makes that easy.
posted by Itaxpica at 2:49 PM on August 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

My neighborhood, Clinton Hill, is actually quite clear-cut: Washington to Classon, Flushing to Atlantic.

However, I fucked up drawing it and started it on Clinton.

Hooray for ruining the dataset!
posted by babelfish at 2:50 PM on August 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

When I was apartment hunting in SF a while back there was some guy spam-posting "BEWARE!!! apartments falsely labeled as Inner Sunset/Inner Richmond" ads and describing the "correct" boundaries. (For non-San Franciscans, these are... not prestigious neighborhoods, although I suppose he could have been trying to draw a hard line between them and the even less prestigious Outer Sunset/Richmond.)

As I commented on Facebook at the time, "I'm completely powerless against the hordes of scammers, grifters, slumlords, and people miscategorizing one bedroom in an apartment as a one-bedroom apartment, but by God, I will protect the geographical integrity of my microhood. ...because to rent an apartment west of 19th Avenue is a fate worse than death."
posted by sunset in snow country at 2:50 PM on August 11, 2015 [5 favorites]

My neighborhood, Clinton Hill, is actually quite clear-cut: Washington to Classon, Flushing to Atlantic.

I put the Eastern Boundary of Clinton Hill at Park. To me, Park (BQE) to the East River is Wallabout or Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Also, it's always been my understanding that Vanderbilt to Classon are the North-South boundaries (and I'm pretty sure that's what it says on the historic district markers).

Definitely not past Atlantic though. Nobody made that mistake!
posted by maggiemaggie at 3:04 PM on August 11, 2015

Some ::ahem:: thinks the entire borough of Brooklyn is Kensington.
posted by Splunge at 3:13 PM on August 11, 2015 [2 favorites]

My neighborhood, Clinton Hill, is actually quite clear-cut: Washington to Classon, Flushing to Atlantic.

At least one person seems to think Fort Greene goes all the way to Classon.
posted by Itaxpica at 3:14 PM on August 11, 2015

I don't live in Greenpoint anymore, but I gave it a shot and someone, instead of drawing Greenpoint's borders, drew a massive arrow pointing at the middle of Williamsburg.

Not sure what point they're trying to make.
posted by postcommunism at 3:15 PM on August 11, 2015

Interestingly enough I was looking for a place to eat in Union Square and Open table kept giving me places at like 19th and Broadway and I was fuming THATS FLATIRON NOT UNION SQUARE WHATS WRONG WITH YOU
posted by The Whelk at 3:25 PM on August 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

I don't really think it gets much easier than the west village tbh. what do i win
posted by poffin boffin at 3:25 PM on August 11, 2015

You're a pioneer: the first person to map Greater Boston

A PIONEER!
posted by not_on_display at 3:27 PM on August 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

The western border of Clinton Hill is not Washington. It is Clinton. Hence the name "Clinton Hill."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:29 PM on August 11, 2015

The Whelk--

They've had to redefine Union Square north to 19th Street because otherwise Danny Meyer would run afoul of truth-in-advertising laws.
posted by thecaddy at 3:31 PM on August 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

Wars have been fought over less.
posted by JPD at 3:39 PM on August 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

People are extending the border of the UWS past Central Park and that's just WRONG
posted by The Whelk at 3:53 PM on August 11, 2015 [2 favorites]

Here's my Chinatown. I'm a little fuzzy on the southeastern border in the E Broadway area. In the past I would have said Kenmare is the northern border between Bowery and Centre street, but this is quickly becoming part of Soho. Broome used to be the clear border on Mott and Elizabeth; now that's not even so certain; those blocks are changing fast.
posted by pravit at 3:56 PM on August 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

There's four for Briarwood, which doesn't surprise me as barely anyone knows this neighborhood exists. But someone drew the borders over Kew Gardens, and I'm all... WTF?
posted by SansPoint at 4:01 PM on August 11, 2015

There's a map in the back of the taxis that shows all the neighborhoods. My friend lives smack in the middle of a tiny, unmarked one just South of the East Village. He calls it So EVil.
posted by sexyrobot at 4:19 PM on August 11, 2015 [6 favorites]

I love these informal consensus maps. In 2012 there was a similar project by Bostonians to map their neighborhoods.
posted by Monochrome at 4:26 PM on August 11, 2015

Burlington, VT, of all places, did this a couple years ago.
posted by en forme de poire at 5:25 PM on August 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

There's also a 2015 update to the Bostonography project.
posted by enf at 5:45 PM on August 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

My Hudson Heights was much more inclusive than most. I think of the Buddha Beer Bar as the exact center of my neighborhood and I'm not sure what that says about me.
posted by cleroy at 6:38 PM on August 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

People are extending the border of the UWS past Central Park and that's just WRONG

augh WHAT djfaks;lfjdaksl;re
posted by tickingclock at 6:49 PM on August 11, 2015

"…because to rent an apartment west of 19th Avenue is a fate worse than death."

I love the avenues. I love the fog, I love the ocean, I love the surfers, I love the weird suburban but not suburban-ness, I love the food... SO when I see an apartment listed as "inner richmond" when you're like 5 blocks from the ocean, it's not about neighborhood purity or prestige, someone is just flat out lying. (For NY'ers it's like if someone listed their jersey city apt as "downtown manhattan".) And it's infuriating precisely BECAUSE it's so pointless. Like who are you going to be successfully lying to? Someone who just got off the plane? Someone who is not going to look at the address or visit the apartment before signing a contract??

I'm not saying that craigslist dude was me, but that craigslist dude was me*

*Metaphorically*.
*Possibly literally.
posted by danny the boy at 7:01 PM on August 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

An aside, but the Inner Sunset in SF is a pretty desirable neighborhood being wedged between UCSF/Parnassus Heights, Golden Gate Park and Cole Valley/Upper Haight, to say nothing of its own charms....
posted by the lake is above, the water below at 7:07 PM on August 11, 2015

Oh, oops.... On second read I now get what sunset (heh) meant :/
posted by the lake is above, the water below at 7:09 PM on August 11, 2015

Wow, I had no idea so many of my most dimwitted neighbors read DNAInfo!

Right = me

Wrong = them
posted by the hot hot side of randy at 8:12 PM on August 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

The important thing is that someone drew Stuyvesant Town as a big cartoon penis.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 8:30 PM on August 11, 2015 [6 favorites]

The Astoria maps look like a cubist acid dream.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:04 AM on August 12, 2015

I'd like to see some hard evidence that Stuy Town is not a giant cartoon penis.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:05 AM on August 12, 2015 [3 favorites]

I seem to be in keeping with most Astorians.
posted by gaspode at 7:53 AM on August 12, 2015

DNAinfo has added this for Chicago as well.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 7:57 AM on August 12, 2015

I don't really think it gets much easier than the west village tbh. what do i win

Yah but check out the Greenwich Village map and how we have absolutely zero clarity on whether you are part of us or not.
posted by naoko at 8:46 AM on August 12, 2015

Is there a way to look what people have drawn for other neighborhoods than mine without having to contribute my own confused idiot drawings?
posted by naoko at 8:50 AM on August 12, 2015

I was going to ask the same thing. Can you see the results anywhere? I don't live in New York.
posted by yhbc at 9:24 AM on August 12, 2015

Apparently I am the first person to choose Edenwald. 100% of people surveyed think Edenwald is in Quebec.
posted by sfenders at 8:30 AM on August 13, 2015