NYC Music Venues Google Map Project

A few years ago, I created a Google Map to chart active music venues in the 5 boroughs of New York. Creating your own G-Map was a brand new possibility at the time and very exciting for map geeks such as myself. Being a musician who flows well outside the mainstream, the majority of the venues I initially included were "underground" and tended toward experimentalism. I eventually started to include major mainstream classical and otherwise venues as the number of map views increased which now totals an amazing 5400.

I also eventually began to include defunct spots, which is now really where my interest in this project  lies. Mapping the vicissitudes of the New York indie and experimental scene tells a fascinating visual narrative. I'm redoubling my efforts to identify as many of the "alternative spaces" of the early to late SoHo scene as I can. Visualizing in this way the fact that so many spaces have come and gone may induce professional depression, but the historicist in me can't help but learn where these places were and stick a (red) pin.

Here's the map as it stands today:

View NYC Music Venues in a larger map