Author and researcher Ingrid Burrington has an interesting project which involves decoding the cryptic physical infrastructure of the internet in New York City. This includes cables, relay boxes, wi-fi antennas and repeaters, and even the spray-painted symbols that ISP's like Spectrum places on the street to identify what lies below.

Using New York as her point of reference and more than fifty color illustrations as her map, Burrington takes us on a tour of the urban network: She decodes spray-painted sidewalk markings, reveals the history behind cryptic manhole covers, shuffles us past subway cameras and giant carrier hotels, and peppers our journey with background stories about the NYPD's surveillance apparatus, twentieth-century telecommunication monopolies, high frequency trading on Wall Street, and the downtown building that houses the offices of both Google and the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force.

Purchase "Networks of New York: An Illustrated Field Guide to Urban Internet Infrastructure" for just $20 on Amazon

Good afternoon! Wishing you a happy Wednesday, November 4th, 2020 from all of us at Viewing NYC!

Here's what the weather looks like in the City right now.

The Billion Oyster Project is a program in partnership with Mayor Bill de Blasio and the Department of Environmental Protection that has a long term goal of reintroducing a billion live oysters into the once-rich New York Harbor and surrounding waters. In this video from Zagat, see how the project works to make a difference in New York Harbor's ecosystem.

The Billion Oyster Project is trying to do some good with the oyster shells leftover from your dinner. The organization collects empty oyster shells that would usually be sent to the landfill, and returns them to the rivers surrounding the city. The goal: to restore the habitat so that a new generation of bivalves can flourish naturally.