Ben Marcus's books The Age of Wire and String and Notable American Women were considered "experimental" fiction because of his unconventional use of...
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The book is fascinating, and well-illustrated. However only the 17th and 18th century maps are clearly readable. Once the City grows to a point where it occupies a major part of Manhattan, the book designer is faced with a dilemna: in order to fit the island on the page the image must be shrunk to a point where the the individual streets are only discernible as a general pattern. This especially true when the images are photographs of original documents, on somewhat faded and yellowed manuscrpits. But even the modern satellite photo of Manhattan suffers greatly from the small scale in which it is presented. I also find it inexcusable that the author left out t1e U.S.G.S. map of Manhattan as it appears in the 7.5' Quadrangle Series. This is probably one of the clearest views of the current city combining both the sreet grid and the current topography. What the book really needs is a companion website where the maps can be seen in full, with zoom capability so as to enjoy views of these at any scale.
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Manhattan in Maps
debrigard, June 7, 2009
The book is fascinating, and well-illustrated. However only the 17th and 18th century maps are clearly readable. Once the City grows to a point where it occupies a major part of Manhattan, the book designer is faced with a dilemna: in order to fit the island on the page the image must be shrunk to a point where the the individual streets are only discernible as a general pattern. This especially true when the images are photographs of original documents, on somewhat faded and yellowed manuscrpits. But even the modern satellite photo of Manhattan suffers greatly from the small scale in which it is presented. I also find it inexcusable that the author left out t1e U.S.G.S. map of Manhattan as it appears in the 7.5' Quadrangle Series. This is probably one of the clearest views of the current city combining both the sreet grid and the current topography. What the book really needs is a companion website where the maps can be seen in full, with zoom capability so as to enjoy views of these at any scale.