Making New York's Subway Look Like London's - Gawker Comments

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

WorthingtonThunderbird — Thu, 29 May 2008 10:50:36 EDT

Here's a look at the evolution of the NYC subway map, showing how it developed into Vignelli's map and why it turned away from that approach. http://www.mensvogue.com/design/slideshows/2008/03/subway

WorthingtonThunderbird

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

meechybee — Fri, 02 May 2008 12:06:57 EDT

I've never been sold on the Vignelli map. London's streets are tangled, which is why a straightened-out map was so revolutionary. Manhattan's streets are, for the most part, gridded, so a straight-ruled map is unnecessary and confusing to the actual scale of the city.

The current map serves two purposes -- a transport diagram and a street-accurate one. If you want to improve upon anything, improve upon the cartography of the current map without throwing out all scale.

meechybee

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

meechybee — Fri, 02 May 2008 12:02:34 EDT

poor new jersey...deleted again

meechybee

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

MrMisterJ — Fri, 02 May 2008 02:33:43 EDT

I'm a real new yorker. I don't need a map.

MrMisterJ

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

winniemc — Thu, 01 May 2008 17:00:51 EDT

@StrawBerryShortCake: Yeah, we need something like that right now to pull us together as a people. Quick, someone shove a cat into a deli wall!

winniemc

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

GingerVitis — Thu, 01 May 2008 16:38:38 EDT

@digitalsmoothie: Agreed -- the NYC subway map may not be entirely accurate, but you can use it as a pretty decent walking/bus-taking guide as well.

The Boston and London maps may be pretty and design-y, but for cities where travelers regularly combine walking to a station with riding the train and taking a bus later on, they're largely useless.

GingerVitis

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

rdc — Thu, 01 May 2008 16:24:25 EDT

There's also the KickMap which is in the same spirit, but probably going nowhere.

rdc

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

Quartet — Thu, 01 May 2008 16:12:01 EDT

Maybe men's vogue should tackle their own design atrocity (i.e. logo) before they start knocking the MTA for having shitty design. But I guess it takes one to know one.

Quartet

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

Hamud Ibn Hamud — Thu, 01 May 2008 15:57:20 EDT

@DonPardoCalrissian:

I love Hopstop, but for some reason it doesn't route you through Jamaica when you need to do something like get from Canal St to 59th & Lex.

I think the MTA knows something about safety that we don't and figures that it's just best for everyone to have more and more passengers spending more and more "unnecessary" time wandering around Jamaica.

Hamud Ibn Hamud

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

niceguysorta — Thu, 01 May 2008 15:57:06 EDT

@dola: a little emoticon goes a long way. ;-) <--see?

niceguysorta

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

Nick Denton — Thu, 01 May 2008 15:43:39 EDT

For the geographically accurate approach, try this: a 1948 map sent our way by Leon at the Observer.
[www.nycsubway.org]

Nick Denton

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

I Don't Get It — Thu, 01 May 2008 15:39:52 EDT

@StrawBerryShortCake: Or eat milk chocolate instead of dark.

I Don't Get It

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

bellethellama — Thu, 01 May 2008 15:36:27 EDT

@Phyllis Nefler: I actually had to do that once--was driving with a girl who thought PA Turnpike automatically equalled the Northeast Extension and instead of Hershey, we ended up by the Poconos (and had I not loudly insisted that we stop at that point, we would have been in the mountains themselves). We bought a map, and I managed to get us to where we needed to be without merely backtracking and paying heinous tolls, and doing that completely made my day.

bellethellama

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

kkuchenb — Thu, 01 May 2008 15:29:57 EDT

I'd like to see the weekend train-maintenance version of this map, the one where the 5 train shows up on the West Side and uptown 1 train shows up on the downtown 2 track at Penn Station. I think you'd need hallucinogenic drugs to read that one.

kkuchenb

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

StrawBerryShortCake — Thu, 01 May 2008 15:29:51 EDT

@I Don't Get It: or make me watch soccer. or call soccer football for that matter

StrawBerryShortCake

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

Gayyker — Thu, 01 May 2008 15:27:45 EDT

@I Don't Get It: Although I wouldn't mind being able to legally drink down there, too.

Gayyker

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

I Don't Get It — Thu, 01 May 2008 15:25:21 EDT

I don't mind if they make our subway map look like London's as long as they don't give us the un-airconditioned miniature train cars or Londoners' teeth.

I Don't Get It

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

DonPardoCalrissian — Thu, 01 May 2008 15:19:29 EDT

@Hamud: No, [www.hopstop.com] of course.

DonPardoCalrissian

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

DonPardoCalrissian — Thu, 01 May 2008 15:18:07 EDT

@if_i_only_had_a_heart: Now making all stops. Mind the gap.

DonPardoCalrissian

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

dola — Thu, 01 May 2008 15:16:44 EDT

Everything's getting fatter.

I didn't read the article: is it a coincidence that the most lucid subway maps come out when people are hysterical about (still relatively, and artificially, low) gas prices?

dola

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

Hamud Ibn Hamud — Thu, 01 May 2008 15:15:50 EDT

Why would anyone assume that the MTA was interested in helping passengers navigate the subway system on their own?

Does any sane New Yorker use the MTA website's remarkable "trip planner" function?

Like every other travel website, the MTA's appears to be under contract to promote specific routes and carriers. How else can you explain the trip planner's freakish efforts to make Jamaica the "hub" for all subway travel in NYC?

Hamud Ibn Hamud

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

DonPardoCalrissian — Thu, 01 May 2008 15:12:28 EDT

@Gayyker: Testify! Much as I like the London map from a design perspective it is so bad geographically that it compels you to take the tube when you don't need to. Which is fine for the System and people familiar enough with the town but I find it really sort of disingenuous and and manipulative. The NYC map is hideous but you CAN learn the city by contemplating it.

DonPardoCalrissian

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

digitalsmoothie — Thu, 01 May 2008 15:11:39 EDT

Anyone who's been to Boston can tell you about how a diagram of subway lines that is not at all correlated to actual geographical features may look real cute, but it can be a pain in the ass to use especially for those like me who will never master the plan of the city they inhabit.

digitalsmoothie

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

bellethellama — Thu, 01 May 2008 15:04:12 EDT

@hamburgerhotdog: Where did you find this?

bellethellama

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

glitter — Thu, 01 May 2008 15:00:32 EDT

I just barely learned to read the stupid subway map we have now!
Looking at all these other ones is hurting my face.

glitter

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

smartyr — Thu, 01 May 2008 14:58:00 EDT

It's Massimo Vignelli, not "Maximo." Somebody should fix that.

smartyr

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

StrawBerryShortCake — Thu, 01 May 2008 14:54:31 EDT

I am working on a map that points out more important things then stops, like where the astor's gold is hidden and where that kitty was rescued.

StrawBerryShortCake

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

if_i_only_had_a_heart — Thu, 01 May 2008 14:50:57 EDT

@DonPardoCalrissian: @BadUncle:

take me on your express run

locals are fun too

if_i_only_had_a_heart

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

BadUncle — Thu, 01 May 2008 14:48:47 EDT

doh! Stupid me. I didn't click to the whole map. I'll shut up, now, as that is a great map.

BadUncle

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

BadUncle — Thu, 01 May 2008 14:44:32 EDT

Well, this puts you at loggerheads with the Tufte school of digrammatic graphics, Nick. As Tufte said of the London tube map:

"Harry Beck's diagram of the 7+ lines of the London Underground, although geographically inaccurate, provides a coherent overview of a complex system. ...For apparently quite a number of people, the map organized London (rather than London organizing the map)."

Obviously, you can either have an astract representation, or a London-style A-Z guidebook. But you can't have both. One thing I don't want is Vignelli's piece of shit because it doesn't have Brooklyn.

BadUncle

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

CaptainFantastic — Thu, 01 May 2008 14:43:35 EDT

@Phyllis Nefler: They tell us where to go, politely.

CaptainFantastic

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

Gayyker — Thu, 01 May 2008 14:40:13 EDT

THIS GUY'S map was better. Best of both worlds, really.

Gayyker

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

EleanorRigby — Thu, 01 May 2008 14:36:24 EDT

I can't believe Absolut has never realized the Circle line looks like a vodka bottle. Yes, I spent my semester abroad in London.

EleanorRigby

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

Ed — Thu, 01 May 2008 14:35:53 EDT

It's so seventies. I love it.

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

InternMary — Thu, 01 May 2008 14:33:19 EDT

Still doesn't change the fact that waiting for the G train still requires swapping a newspaper with a copy of "War and Peace." Blargh.

InternMary

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

mitchel_stevens — Thu, 01 May 2008 14:32:54 EDT

Even paired down, it is still infinitely better than D.C.'s metro.

mitchel_stevens

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

hypocriteoath — Thu, 01 May 2008 14:32:46 EDT

@hamburgerhotdog: so what was people's problem with the nyc water being beige? ba dum bum.

hypocriteoath

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

Phyllis Nefler — Thu, 01 May 2008 14:32:36 EDT

What is it about maps that makes me love them so much? Stick me in the backseat on a roadtrip with a giant atlas of the United States and I'll be entertained for hours.

Phyllis Nefler

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

tunamelt — Thu, 01 May 2008 14:32:33 EDT

@if_i_only_had_a_heart: They're strangely compelling and erotic.

tunamelt

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

DonPardoCalrissian — Thu, 01 May 2008 14:30:56 EDT

@if_i_only_had_a_heart: You can get more of it for free on the internet. But a book I could leave on my coffee table for my girlfriend to "accidentally" find and get ideas from. I've been wondering how to get her to try the Stockholm Metro ever since we started dating.

DonPardoCalrissian

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

NotAndersonCooper — Thu, 01 May 2008 14:29:59 EDT

Tubular!

NotAndersonCooper

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

Juancho — Thu, 01 May 2008 14:22:44 EDT

@rod: Yes, it does. I can't afford any of the clothes or watches, but my design IQ (which was decent) has gone way up since the mag started.

Juancho

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

if_i_only_had_a_heart — Thu, 01 May 2008 14:18:57 EDT

this book, "transit maps of the world" = hot subway map porn

[www.boingboing.net]

if_i_only_had_a_heart

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

hamburgerhotdog — Thu, 01 May 2008 14:17:33 EDT

The original is amazing and I have it hanging in my house, framed: [nymag.com]

hamburgerhotdog

Making New York's Subway Look Like London's

rod townsend — Thu, 01 May 2008 14:13:07 EDT

Sharing a cab on the way home, I handed my copy of Men's Vogue to a friend that had a flight the next day. After his expected "what am I supposed to do with this" look, I explained that the MV actually has strong architecture and design content. (I subscribe for that reason.)

rod townsend