Ney York Public Library Uses Old Maps To Create a Digital City Time Machine

Photo: NYPL

The New York Public Library's newest endeavor is to create a digital time machine of New York City. The project is called the NYC Space/Time Directory and eventually hopes to

[...] make urban history accessible through the kinds of interactive, location-aware tools used to navigate modern cityscapes. It will provide a way for scholars, students, and enthusiasts to explore New York City across time periods, and to add their own knowledge and expertise.

In other words, given a New York City address or landmark, the site will allow you to peel back the years and inspect all maps, records or any other historical data found from a simple online tool. The project is currently looking for Data Partners to provide data, researchers and advisors to provide new data,
and developers and data wranglers to make sense of it all.

Matt Coneybeare

Matt Coneybeare

Editor in Chief

Matt enjoys exploring the City's with his partner and son. He is an avid marathon runner, and spends most of his time eating, running, and working on cool stuff.

Something wrong with this post? Let us know!

Brought To You By…