I chose to look at the “Digital Harlem” mapping project. It aims to look at the everyday life (people, places and events) of the city of Harlem in Manhattan in New York, specifically for the years 1915 through 1930. The map is interactive and allows users to both view distinguished maps as well as search and create maps specific to the user’s interest. The information for the map was gathered from newspapers, legal records, archives and other public sources, and serves as specific search criteria that users can utilize to restrict the map to their desired specifications.
The map contains a few very interesting features. Along the top, the years of 1920, 1925, and 1930 are listed. When users toggle between these years, the borders of black settlement are shown. I found it particularly fascination to do searches using the criteria along the side and see how these borders interact with my results (i.e. what falls within the borders and what lies without). Also interesting is the toggle between the schematic of New York and the drawn historical map, which is a fire insurance map that was published in 1930. While the first map shows the city as it is now (streets and large public monuments), the second map shows the individual buildings that stood in Harlem at the time.
There are numerous possibilities to illuminate the everyday life of Harlem and its citizens between 1915 and 1930, but I found the site a little hard to maneuver at first. Luckily, there were resources that explained how to use the site. My biggest problem with the site, however, was that the maps demonstrate only part of the history. For example, the maps show the numerous crimes that occurred in the city, but ignore the positive events, if any, that happened at the time. The map also doesn’t allow users to understand the context of the crimes, such as why these crimes occurred. I’m not sure the best way to show this, but I do think it’s an important aspect considering the site wants to show the “everyday life.”
I think it would be very interesting to see first hand accounts, utilizing that information also when constructing the maps. Perhaps this would change the map or remedy the lack of positive events in the map construction. I also think it could be beneficial to see a map of today’s Harlem and compare/contrast the two to see the evolution of the city.