I chose to look at “The Digital Harlem” map. I found the site a bit redundant and slow to use but once I got the hang of it, the information was quite useful. The website uses a google map of New York, specifically Harlem, to display data gathered legal records, newspapers and other archival and published sources, about events, people, places, and general everyday life in Harlem between 1915 and 1930.
Users can manipulate the map based on events, people or places in order to create multiple layers and compare locations of events to one another or events to other people or people to people. There are really a lot of possibilities to illuminate geographic and cultural connections. However I did find a lot of faults in the sight.
I found it a bit confusing that the site chose to distance itself from topics like the Harlem Renaissance stating, “Unlike most studies of Harlem in the early twentieth century, this project focuses not on black artists and the black middle class, but on the lives of ordinary African New Yorkers.” I am not quite sure how they chose to delineate between the two and I found the use of the term “ordinary” very obscure and problematic. If the site is attempting to discuss the very hostile racial inequalities of the time and incidences of crime and arrest or police brutality, I think it did a poor job. And I do not thin that you can display the lives “ordinary” African Americans without also displaying the middle class and the artists of the time. I found that while there was the option to look up arrests and violence in the area, there was a lot more information on parades and parties, it made the sight seem as though they were attempting to hide the harsh realities of racial tension at that time which spurred movements like the Harlem Renaissance. There was also no mention of the Great Migration which took place during the time and could have been an illuminating component to the map.
I think that a network graph in conjunction with the map would be extremely helpful. In addition, I think that the ability to scroll over the different events and people and get background would bee more helpful for research and context. The date component of the map could be refined because I found that the parameters set when dates are distinguished are a bit confusing. A timeline would also be very beneficial to this map, if there was some way we could look up historically important, relevant topics to our search that would give more context to the other statistics we are seeing.