What would you mark on an empty map of Manhattan?
If you were given a blank map of your city, what would you mark on it? The houses you lived in, the bars you went to with friends, the corner where you met the love of your life, the corner where you lost him, the ways to get out of it, the way to work that you hated so much...
This is what he did Becky Cooper in the summer of 2009, handing out blank maps of Manhattan to strangers on the streets . She just asked them to fill them out the way they wanted and send them back to her. "Imagine the answer," she says on the phone as she walks to work at a cafe in Brooklyn. "That is New York , there were people who didn't even look at me, they thought I was giving them publicity... but little by little I managed to get them to listen to me and I would say that 75% of the people liked the story and smiled”.
Much sooner than she expected, her electronic and physical mailbox began to fill up with those maps, only they were no longer blank but full of stories of love, life, friendships, lost objects and even fast food places that she was uploading to her tumblr, Map Your Memories.
Lost gloves of Patricia Marx, editor of the New Yorker magazine
The idea came to her two years earlier, during an internship for a cultural company in which she was commissioned to finish the project that three interns had previously failed to achieve: a map of all the public art in Manhattan . “I spent the whole summer finishing that map. There was so much information, so many doubts... When I finished it, I saw all the notes, photos, that I had been collecting and I realized that that map was also a reflection of me, of the story of my summer in the city, of what is in the streets and that is what seems most valuable to me”.
“I also read Calvin's book, the invisible cities , about how Marco Polo recounts his travels to King Kublai Khan. At one point, he asks him: 'why do you always tell me about these big cities and never about yours?' And Marco Polo tells him: ‘You see every city from the eyes of your house no matter how far away it is’ . It is that –says Cooper–, the thousands of perspectives and points of view from which a city can be seen and understood”.
"A web woven of aspirations"
“A city we make together” says this New Yorker who is now preparing to repeat the project in Paris and Berlin. “At the moment these two because I lived in them and, I think that like New York, arouse some nostalgia and its inhabitants feel a very special connection”.
In the book (published by Abrams), Mapping Manhattan: A Love (and Sometimes Hate) Story in Maps by 75 New Yorkers , she has selected 75 of the hundreds of maps that she receives and continues to receive (even more since the book is on sale), most drawn by anonymous people, but also by well-known New Yorkers, such as Yoko Ono.
'Memory Lane' by Yoko Ono
And you, What would you mark on a map of New York? The hotels, houses you have stayed in, the best hamburger you ate, the place where you lost a glove, the first Starbucks you stepped on, the bar where you met that hipster…
On her Tumblr you can download the blank map and send it to her with your memories.
*** You may also be interested in...**
- A Map Of The World: the rebellion of beautiful maps
- An illustrated route through New York - Guide to New York
- All articles by Irene Crespo
The Starbucks in Manhattan (in green) form a 'Mapucchino'
'Wives and lovers', one of Becky Cooper's favorites