ATL Rap Map

I'm probably not the right person to post this given that my knowledge of Atlanta Hip Hop is basically limited to Outkast (upper left corner),

and my knowledge of Adult Swim where creator Joseph Veazy is a senior designer, is even more limited. Nevertheless the Atlanta Rap Map is a charming, hand painted map with lots of nice details relevant to that city's vibrant hip hop scene. Details like this horse on pink roller skates riding towards Bone Crusher's Bankhea(ddd)d.

Here is some downtown detail for your enjoyment.

Outkast makes their appearance below just north of East Point, just north of the airport, the only place I've been to in Atlanta - so far.

You can buy the poster here  - proceeds will be donated to HOPE Atlanta, an agency dedicated to fighting homelessness in the area.

Renaming Confederate Avenue(s)

Last week the City of Atlanta renamed Confederate and East Confederate Avenue to United Avenue. They also renamed a small street, Confederate Court as Trestletree Court.

Google and Apple Maps both responded quickly with the new names.

Over the years several streets with names honoring Confederate or Klan leaders have been changed. An article in CityLab includes this map showing streets that have been renamed in blue, recommended renamings in orange and other streets with Confederate names.

Renaming streets is expensive and can be controversial. From CityLab:

 "The proposal must be reviewed by the city’s urban design commission, then its public works department, then the utilities committee, and finally the city council. If you want to suggest naming a street after a living person, that person has to be at least 75 years old (No, Bobby Brown Parkway is not named after the King of R&B). Just to get started, the application fee is $2,500, which is compounded by the costs to the city for replacing the street signs if approved. Which is, yes, expensive."

Also not mentioned are the costs to the residents and businesses for stationery, signs and other change of address inconveniences. Along Confederate Avenue most residents wanted to rename the street. In the future the city will look into much thornier renaming situations. Streets like Walker and Bell have less obvious associations but they are also named for Confederate leaders.

Waffle House America

Last year Deadspin posted this map showing the Waffle House-IHOP version of the Mason-Dixon Line.

  mapsbynik has added to this geographical foodways discussion by mapping the density of Waffle Houses.

The map was done by taking USGS 30x60 minute map quad sheets, overlaying them onto Google Earth, and extruding the height based on the number of Waffle Houses. More details and data by quad can be seen at mapsbynik's tumblr site. Atlanta is the home base for the chain so their dominance was expected, however the degree to which it towers above the rest of the country is truly impressive.

USGS quads are not a common unit for this type of mapping (counties would be much more typical) but the quads work nicely for the Waffle House data pattern. Because the Atlanta area is spread among numerous counties, a county map would spread the data out. This would result in more of a boring low rise edge city look than the towering skyscraper we get here.

Subways of North America

xkcd once again embraces their love of maps with Subways of North America. While I've seen similar subway map mashups, I've never seen them connected before.

These inter-city connections create some wonderful highlights. Here are some of my personal favorites:

The Cleveland Circle (Boston) to Cleveland shuttle - passing through West Trenton, this shuttle would be a nice easy way for me to leave work and go visit my Mom. West Trenton's location along Lake Erie just beyond South Harbor is also a bit curious.

The Green Line extension from Cambridge to Montreal - if it even makes it to Medford that would be remarkable.

The extension of the Market Street elevated subway line in West Philly/Upper Darby from 69th Street to Long Beach and LA.

The Rocky Mountain Tunnel (at sea level) connecting Chicago's O'Hare airport to Oakland.

A couple of extremely long subway tunnels from Atlanta and Miami to Mexico City.

The Puerto Rico submarine from Staten Island to San Juan and the connection from Jamaica (Queens) to Jamaica.

The Springfield Monorail connecting to nowhere, not even North Haverbrook.

There's lots of other things to explore including tunnels in the Caribbean,  "covertly repurposed" Amtrak lines, strangely renamed Red Line stations in Quincy, Mass. and a graveyard for passengers killed by closing doors - have fun exploring!

Happy MLK Day!

The Martin Luther King, Jr., National Historic Site in Atlanta consists of several buildings, including the house he was born, the Ebenezer Baptist Church where he was a pastor, his tomb and the King Center. Here is a detail from the National Parks Service map that can be found on this page: