The New Yorker Cover and its Imitators

 In 1976, Saul Steinberg illustrated this famous cover for the New Yorker.

The humorously exaggerated myopia of a “typical“ New Yorker led to many imitations across the world. I found a bunch of examples on the David Rumsey Map Collection when looking for something completely unrelated. Here is Milwaukee. 

Interestingly this version has a foreground as well as a background. It also features a better sense of geographic accuracy than the original though the China-Japan-Russia bit is basically duplicated. Look at tiny little Chicago! Saratoga Springs is an interesting addition though its location in Connecticut is a bit off.

 Here is another example with mountains and skiers.

An international perspective, looking westward from Les Deux Magots.

Here is a looking east perspective. This one shows rival colleges. Perhaps ones with better geography departments as the distant locations of Heidelberg and Eton are flipped.

This one is probably my favorite. “One of Chicago’s two great airports“ exaggerating the centrality of Midway while implying that you need to travel almost to Siberia just to get to the chaos of O’Hare Airport.

In 1977, the Kinney Shoe Corporation, in cooperation with the President’s Council on Physical Fitness put out a series of walking tour brochures for historical sites across the United States. Perhaps the idea was, walk more, wear down your shoes and buy some more.

Here is an example from Paterson, New Jersey, “America’s first great industrial city”. Alexander Hamilton saw the power potential of the Great Falls of the Passaic River, the second largest waterfall east of the Mississippi River.

The walks range from rustic, historic ambles (I chose this one for both personal history and because it’s near where I’m writing this from),

 to college towns,

 to downtown tours,

 museum and garden loops,

and finally to a “redwood grove near Santa Cruz”.

Along the way, you learn about the ghosts of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Mann and John O'Hara haunting the libraries and tap rooms of Princeton, Chicago's architecture, the friendliness of Woodstock, Illinois, miscellaneous redwood facts and that Scottsdale, Arizona has some of the "prettiest women".
 

The NACIS 2020 Quilt

Last month I attended my first conference of the North American Cartographic Information Society (NACIS). One of their traditions is to create a Map Quilt. This year, in honor of the society's 40th anniversary the quilt was made up of submissions from past NACIS presidents. The theme is Milwaukee- where NACIS is headquartered.

Alex Tait

Each quilt square is another take on mapping Milwaukee. Here are some examples - many interesting approaches to the same place.

Tanya Buckingham

Henry Castner

Erik Steiner

Keith Rice

James Meacham

MOTW #71

Many years ago I publicly insulted the City of Milwaukee at a cafe in Madison, Wisconsin. I could tell that I really insulted the guy at the next table so I've felt bad about it ever since.
I've always wanted to pay my debts to that fine city. I recently came across some very good things being done there for bicycling and the environment. Here is a virtual map of the Memomenee Valley. If you click the Landmarks and recreation "on" you get some nice facts and pictures about the places. If you click on the Sixth Street Viaduct (bridge nr at the east end) you get a picture that looks remarkably similar to a bridge we have here in Boston.