Do You Know Where You Are: The Hyperlocal Mapping Party

Maps are a handy item. They can show you where you are. They can tell you where you are going. They show you new places to discover as close or as far away from home as you want to be. One of my favorite "features" of my apartment are the tacked-up BikePGH bike maps, which are both informative and really fun to look at.

Maps were the guest of honor at the Hyperlocal Mapping Party hosted by Assemble on Penn Ave last Wednesday night. There were a number of activities and presenters, including the amateur cartographer Eric Lidji (he has been doing some lovely PGH-reporting lately) and his protractors! (You remember, the protractors? I wrote about them in my very first post!)

No one's found #33 yet! Someone get out there and find #33!

The string of protractors I discovered along the river on the South Side and along the Eliza Furnace Trail.

One of the other activities was "Mapping Your Body." Carrie was given a long sheet of paper, drew her body's outline, and filled it in with clippings from magazines - a representation of what Carrie is made up of.

By far, my favorite clipping Carrie chose was the reddish one with the cat on it. You can see it at the top of her head in the photo above. It's great because it says: "Cats, Little Tigers In Your Houses." I hope this is Carrie's actual thought process.

The map above shows the various abandoned or vacated plots in Garfield. This map isn't just a listing of properties in the neighborhood. The great amount of orange/yellow/tan on this map shows that Garfield is an area ready for a major infusion of life. Being that it borders my current location, I hope good things develop there.