Digital Harlem

For this assignment, I chose to explore Digital Harlem: Everyday Life 1915-1930. This project presents information about different types of events occurring in New York City’s Harlem from 1915 to 1930 in the form of a map. The information was collected from legal records, newspapers, archives, and other print sources. A search panel is included on the left of the map, which allows users to specify their event, date, location, or person of interest. Multiple searches can be layered onto the map with different indicators of different colors, which enables users to easily compare different events. In addition to the street map, there is an overlying historical map that displays individual buildings during that time period. Another interesting feature is the section above the map, which illustrates the boundaries of the area in which the black population inhabited in 1920, 1925, and 1930.

I agree with Turnbull’s contention that all maps are perspectival and subjective because each visual project presents a different narrative that reveals some information from the dataset and obscures other information. In this particular project, the narrative was influenced by the law enforcement system and its perspective of the criminal acts. In spite of the details provided about each crime, the narrative disregarded the perspectives of the people involved in these acts because the details were gathered from legal records and case files. In addition, since the data was collected from newspapers and other print sources, the narrative only displayed the reported news, which would mainly consist of stories on bigger events because newspapers most likely only print stories that would sell. The information presented appears very impersonal because of the sources of the dataset. Therefore, the title of the project is very misleading because these events did not represent everyday life in Harlem during that time period, but only represented a selected portion of what was going on.

While I found the features of the map very fascinating, the information that was displayed on the map was not portraying the narrative that the project contributors intended to, according to the website’s “About” section. In order to truly capture everyday life in Harlem, there should have been a bigger focus on its culture and history, rather than its criminal background. The project contributors could gather data from older residents about how their days in Harlem were spent and from younger residents about their family histories. What could also be helpful to include on this map is an outline of the Harlem neighborhood.