This Week's New Yorker Cover Features a Clever Bookshelf Map of Manhattan Neighborhoods

“Shelf Life,” by Luci Gutiérrez.
“Shelf Life,” by Luci Gutiérrez.
Photo: New Yorker

This week's New Yorker Magazine cover features a clever representation of Manhattan neighborhoods assembled in a bookcase. Titled Shelf Life, the illustration was created by artist Luci Gutiérrez and includes depictions of iconic, neighborhood defining features such as a child's alphabet block for Alphabet City, a dino-skeleton for the American Museum of Natural HIstory, a stethescope for Bellevue Hospital, and more.

"I drew a bookshelf, and the lines made me think of the streets of a map,” Luci Gutiérrez says, about her cover for this week’s issue. Another inspiration for her image: Wunderkammern, the cabinets of curiosities created in the Renaissance to display collections of extraordinary objects. “I don’t have this particular piece of furniture, but I wish I did. I keep strange and pretty objects,” Gutiérrez says. “It can be a chocolate paper wrapper or a Japanese mask. . . . they provide me with a way to remember the place they come from.”

Can you identify what each object represents?

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.

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