Mapping Manhattan
A Love (and Sometimes Hate) Story in Maps by 75 New Yorkers
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3.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Armed with hundreds of blank maps she had painstakingly printed by hand, Becky Cooper walked Manhattan from end to end. Along her journey she met police officers, homeless people, fashion models, and senior citizens who had lived in Manhattan all their lives. She asked the strangers to “map their Manhattan” and to mail the personalized maps back to her. Soon, her P.O. box was filled with a cartography of intimate narratives: past loves, lost homes, childhood memories, comical moments, and surprising confessions. A beautifully illustrated, PostSecret-style tribute to New York, Mapping Manhattan includes 75 maps from both anonymous mapmakers and notable New Yorkers, including Man on Wire aerialist Philippe Petit, New York Times wine critic Eric Asimov, Tony award-winning actor Harvey Fierstein, and many more.
Praise for Mapping Manhattan:
“What an intriguing project.”—The New York Times
“A tender cartographic love letter to this timeless city of multiple dimensions, parallel realities, and perpendicular views.” —Brain Pickings
“Cooper’s beautiful project linking the lives of New Yorkers is one that will continue to grow.” —Publishers Weekly online
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"Maps are more about their makers than the places they describe. Map who you are. Map where you are. Map your memories." Cooper, writer, cartographer, and a native New Yorker, carefully assembles a surprisingly intimate collection of life stories from her art project, mapyourmemories. Laboriously hand-printing blank maps of Manhattan, she walks the length of the island asking strangers to provide their own narrative of New York. When Cooper receives her illustrated Manhattans, she finds a barrage of personal memories: from humorous insights to confessions, lost loves and childhood reminiscences; the vignettes, through maps, become love letters offering tribute to New York past and present. The maps represent New Yorkers and visitors from all walks of life: MTA employees, students, can collectors, mail carriers, artists, and city planners side-by-side with well-known New Yorkers such as chef David Chang, Yoko Ono, and Harvey Fierstein. New York reveals itself as "simultaneously no one's city and everyone's city." Relationships to the city by those who have lived and loved in New York are interspersed with Cooper's own history, artful illustrations, and quotes from street encounters. Cooper's beautiful project linking the lives of New Yorkers is one that will continue to grow.
