If you were looking for another perspective on Manhattan, the folks at Gawker have just the map for you. Their new subway map tracks the various smells visitors are finding in each subway stop — from the sublime to the stinky.
Why, exactly, would you want to know that the 14th Street and 6th/7th Avenue stop smells of food and urine? I suppose it’s best to be prepared.
On the useful side, the new mapping capacities of the web make all kinds of views of our environment possible — like maps of stressful or emotional places drawn from biometric sensors and global positioning technology.
So much of cultural management is about place, and about individual and group experiences of that place. The new mapping — silly or serious — can make those hidden elements visible to all.
The Emotion Map site cuts right to the question:
“Will seeing other people’s experiences allow us to engage differently with our environment?”
The flexibilty one has to edit Google maps with sites such as a Frappr.com has allowed people to create some very unique maps. Our company recently added one to our site that shows where all of our clients are located. Very simple to set up.
My favorite map by far (also a Manhattan map) is the Ghostbusters map.
http://www.ironicsans.com/gbmap.html