The Springfield Subway

I recently saw the Simpsons episode Postcards from the Wedge for the first time. It prominently features this map of the abandoned Springfield Subway.

In a long ago post I featured the map of Springfield - a direct link to it is here. 

While these maps look very different a close look shows an unexpected attention to geographic detail. The street layouts are very similar between the two. The street names are also consistent. 

A newer version of the subway appears in a later episode with more jokes but less geographic fidelity. This version is full of puns such as the musical references Boulevard of Broken Dreams and Yes Roundabout. There's also Queasy Street and a Varmint District.

Springfield also famously had a monorail. I have not found any maps of it but here are the other towns that were sold on a monorail. This map is also available as a T-shirt.

The Remarkable Maps of Mr. Tornado

Last night I watched "The Remarkable Mind of Mr. Tornado" on PBS. Tetsuya "Ted" Fujita was a pioneer in meteorology, known for developing the F-scale to measure tornadoes. His studies led him to draw many maps of this nature.

What I enjoyed the most was his personal maps. When he was invited to the University of Chicago to work with professor Horace Byers, he experienced his first airplane flight. During the flight he drew this charming map showing the clouds he passed through on a multi-day flight with two stopovers on Wake Island and in Hawaii.

Via PBS, "American Experience"

This map is a bit hard to read at this size so here is some detail. Click the picture above to see the entire map at higher resolution.

In his own words "Without wasting the expensive flight time, I began sketching the vertical time cross section of clouds along the flight path. Shortly before 1600 JST, the aircraft flew into towering cumuli, encountering severe turbulence. I heard crashing sounds of dishes and utensils in the flight kitchen. A moment after, the flight became smooth and I saw a beautiful arc of low clouds.”

After settling in Chicago he began to document his travel throughout the United States and Canada, first by railroad, then by car.

He traveled through every state except Rhode Island. According to the map he only missed it by a few miles. I have chronicled my own travels in this manner but not with nearly as much charm or detail.

Highlights of this map include the tornado-chasing squiggles through Oklahoma and the green elevation contours.

More on Mr. Fujita here.
 

Maps of Televsion Places - Part 1 of ?

With much of the World's population under some sort of lockdown a lot of TV is being consumed. I was watching an old (they're all old) rerun (they're all reruns) of The Office the other night when I noticed this map on the wall.

I had wondered about the frequent mention of these places - wait a minute, where's Stamford? Much more obvious is the giant Pennsylvania map in Michael's office. Both of these maps can be bought on Screenbid.

In past blog posts I have covered shows such as The Simpsons,

Bonanza,

and Batman.

These are just the ones I remember off the top of my head. There are probably more that I've covered over years of blogging. The world of television is full of maps of places both real and imaginary. One map the caught my attention a few years back but I never got around to featuring it. Here is Pawnee, Indiana from Parks & Recreation.

An article from New Zealand's zm shows how this map was taken from Christchurch.

 Here is the Land Use and Important Facilities Map of Pawnee.

Image stolen from Pinterest who stole it from Buzzfeed?

There are plenty more of these places to map (I could probably do an entire post on Westeros) and there will probably be future posts. Especially if we're all stuck inside for a couple more months.

The Great British Television Map

For those of you who can't get enough British television, American Tim Ritz has given us the Great British Television Map.

The map shows each series with a thick white arrow pointing to its intended setting. The setting location is color coded by channel. A much smaller, and often difficult to follow black line points to the filming location. A notable exception is Doctor Who, who's setting is listed as "All of time & space" and is located off to the side.
Here's a detail from the Midlands.

There is also a London inset map at the bottom.

The map can be purchased as a print here.

Big Ten Games of Thrones Map

Like many Americans, I spent way too much time Monday night watching the NCAA Championship football game. While not paying total attention, this commercial for the Big Ten Conference really jumped out at me. The commercial is called "Maps" and is based on the Game of Thrones intro (with the same music.)

It constructs a flyover of the US, starting at the Rose Bowl. As you pass by iconic buildings, stadiums and landmarks pop up from the landscape. Here is a tour using screen grabs from YouTube.

From the west coast you fly across the mountains to Nebraska, the current westernmost outpost of the conference.

Next comes Iowa, then Minnesota, then Wisconsin.

One of the most dramatic moments is watching the Chicago skyline pop up in front of the Northwestern logo. Note the theater references for Northwestern and Iowa. The mist coming off the Ohio River adds to the medieval theme.

The Michigan-Ohio State rivalry is about as big as it gets.

From there, it makes the jump to the east coast to cover the conference's recent acquisitions. Here are Penn State and Maryland with east coast icons such as the Capitol building, Washington Monument, LOVE statue and the Liberty Bell.

The flyover heads over the Atlantic and turns back to the west to include Rutgers the "birthplace of college football" (according to the ad) along with the NYC skyline and the ferris wheel at Seaside Heights, New Jersey. I like the reflections off the water.  

The full video is at the top - enjoy!

The Office Tour of Scranton

Last night was the final episode of The Office. In memory of the show here is a map of Scranton from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.


The article that accompanies the map gives you some details about some of the sights including the quotes below:

A -Paper Magic

Paper Magic Group, which makes greeting cards, Valentines and other seasonal products, is often confused for Dunder Mifflin. The office building is shown briefly in the show's opening credits, along with a Mulberry Street sign.
And actor John Krasinksi, who plays Jim, visited Paper Magic when he was scouting possible locations and filmed the opening montage of the city from his car.

B - Niko Bella restaurant

Brenda Stanco and her step-father John Xanthis, owners of Niko-Bella restaurant in Scranton, hung a banner outside their restaurant, after one episode had the character of Michael getting a sandwich delivered from the restaurant.

C -Farley's

Farley's restaurant also got a quick mention on the show.
"I want to be to 'The Office' what Monk's Restaurant was to 'Seinfeld,' " said Bill Young, owner of Farley's. A 10-year-old customer suggested a Michael Scott burger, a cheese-slathered burger Mr. Young is going to add it to the menu this fall.

D - City Hall 

A Dunder Mifflin sign hangs outside City Hall in Scranton.

E - Greater Scranton Chamber of Commerce

The buzzed-about comedy has also brought Scranton some reverse chic. Mr. Burke of the Chamber of Commerce said his nephew, a comedy writer in Los Angeles, was always teased about being from Scranton. But once "The Office" became a hit, his friends were asking him for Scranton mugs.
So the chamber sends their mugs to West Coast hipsters. Among the Scranton props that Ms. Potis has sent to the show are a blue Chamber plaque, a Froggy 101 bumper sticker plastered on a filing cabinet, and the coats and hats from Niko-Bella restaurant.

The city's history also gets a brief mention:

Scranton, named for industrialist brothers George and Selden Scranton, was the anthracite coal capital in the 1930s and the third largest city in Pennsylvania with 140,000. But as alternative sources of energy were tapped in the 1950s, the coal industry suffered and the city lost about half of its population, said Willis Conover, chairman of the history department at the University of Scranton.
In 1992, the state declared it a distressed city, a designation it still holds. But the Downtown has brightened with a new mall, a Hilton, 12 new restaurants and Sanofi Pasteur , a pharmaceutical company. And the town square has been illuminated with a huge "Electric City" sign, a reference to its designation as the first city with an electric trolley car.

Stunning Pictures of America "Revealed"

These pictures are from a PBS miniseries called America Revealed. The series is a look at the "systems that keep America working" by analyzing our networks of transportation food delivery and others. These pictures are from a recent article in the Daily Mail. Many of them are from GPS tracks.

The route of a combine harvesting business.

The electrical grid.

New York's morning rush hour color coded by transportation mode.  Buses (blue) are only shown for Manhattan and cars are not shown.

A "visual representation of the nation's wind resource."

A vast array of communications towers

For more pictures see the Daily Mail.

Map of the Week-Burning Edition

Robert Ayres who created the burning Ponderosa map for Bonanza died recently.

This map is on permanent display at the Autry National Center in Los Angeles. Assuming that north is supposed to be up, the map was drawn incorrectly. When Ayres showed the map to series creator David Dortort he said "I love it, but your directions are wrong." Ayres fixed this by adding a compass with north pointing to the left and up. If only all cartographic problems could be solved this way.

Here's the map in action

For your viewing pleasure, here is the intro so you can watch it burn!



Thanks to my wife for the post suggestion and title.