Category: Blog

Posted on

Map Preservation Volunteer Opportunity – October 24

Map Preservation (literally)

Posted by: “Baruch” barry@droginconsult.com bdrogin
Date: Thu Oct 8, 2009 7:45 am ((PDT))

Volunteers needed to help preserve 1964 World’s Fair 130’x166′ terrazzo replica of Texaco New York State Road Map designed by Philip Johnson.

Please RSVP to Michelle Langlie (Michelle.Langlie@Parks.NYC.gov) if you wish to participate and forward to anyone you may think would be interested. Full details below.

Saturday, October 24th, 9a.m. – 4 p.m.

Designed by famed American architect Philip Johnson for the 1964 World’s Fair, the large-scale terrazzo art pavement was commissioned by Governor Nelson Rockefeller for the New York State Pavilion. Johnson’s Pavilion featured a complex of structures: a Theaterama building, three observation towers, and the “Tent of Tomorrow,” a 12-story open-air elliptical pavilion capped by the world’s largest suspended cable system roof fitted with colored acrylic panels. The “Tent of Tomorrow” became a symbol of the fair, and for its main floor, Johnson designed the largest-known representation of any area of the earth’s surface: a 130-foot by 166-foot terrazzo replica of a Texaco New York State road map.

Although the Fair buildings were intended as temporary, 1965 plans for creating Flushing Meadows-Corona Park identified the Pavilion for preservation and reuse. While the Theaterama was later successfully renovated as a community theater, the remaining complex is closed and derelict. Today the Tent is used for storage, and the Road Map is in an advanced state of deterioration from weathering, vandalism, and past inappropriate recreational uses.

We’re looking for volunteers to help out onsite on SATURDAY, OCTOBER 24th, performing a range of activities from removal of invasive vegetation, to the careful and systematic collection and bagging of map fragments that have been dislodged from the floor of the Pavilion. Instruction would be given to the volunteers on how to go about collecting the fragments before any work would begin. We’re looking for volunteers who are responsible, pay close attention to detail, and can follow instructions. Given the historical nature of the work, a certain degree of sensitivity is required. Everyday more of the famous map disappears, making the proposed conservation work critical.

Volunteers should meet at the Olmsted Center (Flushing Meadows Corona Park) by 9 a.m. Preservation Alumni will provide lunch. All alumni, friends, family, co-workers and associates are welcome. There is a lot of work to be done and many volunteers are needed so please feel free to forward to others whom you think might be interested. Additional details will be sent out closer to the volunteer work day. Please visit www.conlab.org to read about previous work done at the site by the University of Pennsylvania and the related exhibition held at the Queens Museum.

If you are interested, please RSVP as soon as possible at Michelle.Langlie@Parks.NYC.gov or at 718.760.6677.

Posted on

The 2009 IA Institute Salary and Benefits Survey Opens

The 2009 IA Institute Salary and Benefits Survey is now open at:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=rnk5PuDVMuIRC1QwwS9PtA_3d_3d

The survey takes only a minute or two to complete, so we hope you’ll stop by and contribute.

We have made slight edits from last year including a much simpler matrix of responses for IA related tasks, a more normalized breakdown of salary ranges and a further refinement of job titles and experience levels. I enjoyed reviewing last year’s comments regarding medical benefits especially in light of current debate over US healthcare, but because we are an international organization, we went for simple this year and made only a few minor changes.

As in previous years, the survey will remain open through October, and we will post the results on the IAI website in late November/early December.

Posted on

NYCMap Update

GISMO members,

DoITT has updated the NYCMap data and expanded the feature classes available for free download. The update is the most recent and is based on the 2006 aerial flyover.

To download the data, you must first accept the license agreement. To do so follow the link below.

http://www.nyc.gov/html/doitt/html/eservices/eservices_gis.shtml

This is the same basemap data used by NYCityMap – http://gis.nyc.gov/doitt/nycitymap/. Make sure to check out this new and enhanced application as well.

Thanks,
Colin Reilly
Director, DoITT Citywide Geographic Information Systems
59 Maiden Lane, 33rd floor
New York, NY 10038

Posted on

Now Available: DCP’s Bytes of the Big Apple and DoF’s PLUTO files

Zoning data for use in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is now available on the Bytes of the Big Apple page of the DCP website (http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/bytes/applbyte.shtml) The data is provided as a free download in ESRI Shapefile or file geodatabase format. The data set consists of 4 classes of zoning features: zoning districts, special purpose districts, commercial overlay zones, and approximate locations for restrictive/environmental declarations. The downloadable zoning data will be updated on the last Monday of every month. Updates will include recent zoning changes adopted by the City Council.

Also, the Department of Finance’s 09v1 release of MapPLUTO is available. It is
the first release of MapPLUTO using the tax lot features from the Department of
Finance

Posted on

OASIS Beta Launched

The Center for Urban Research at the CUNY Graduate Center has released the beta version of a completely transformed OASIS (www.urbanresearchmaps.org/oasis/map.aspx) map site. The updated information system covers New York City open space, including block level detail of land use, parks, evironmental impact and cleanup zones, and community district and political district data. View video tutorials about the site’s new features and an updated summary of how the OASIS maps have changed.

Posted on

Re: Mentors and Heroes

(Originally posted in comments to Whitney Hess’ blog, Pleasure & Pain)

My favorite mentor story is about a psychology professor I worked for during my senior year at Columbia. He ran the Vision Science Laboratory with three or four graduate students. I showed up on my first day and he threw me a small red book, called Programming in C, and told me to learn it so I can help “reprogram the stimulus on the Techtronix monitor and rewire the input box” for his latest experiments. Oh and then write a script or two to analyze the results.

I sort of freaked, because I had no idea what he was talking about. There were wires and metal button boxes and a huge TV monitor with several computer components connected to it. Behind was a box loaded with little switches and more wires. Somehow I was supposed to write a program that would make it all work. I hadn’t taken a programming course since Apple Basic in 10th grade. The graduate students laughed at me a lot, but I read the book, got the hang of it and ended up having the most fun that year.

Second semester, the same professor challenged me to take another semester of Calculus. I hadn’t taken the first semester Calculus since freshman year but he said I could do it. Well, I failed the first test, which was basically, “name the formula you use to solve the following problems.” But because I had that initial push and a lot of encouragement from a professor who showed me how to teach myself, I realized that I could get through it, though it was indeed a struggle. I ultimately took the pass/fail option and passed.

I always thought mentors and heroes had to be superstars. I admit that I have had my own little quiet conversations with Mozart & Washington a la HClinton & ERoosevelt, but if you do that too much, you end up finding yourself falling way too short in comparison. I don’t need to write a symphony or win a country. Knowing I challenged myself and figured out how to get through it by myself was one of the best lessons I’ve ever learned.

Posted on

NYS GIS Conference, Lake Placid, NY, Oct 25-29

CALL FOR PAPERS

The Silver Anniversary 25th Annual New York State Geographic Information Systems Conference will be held in Lake Placid, NY on October 25-29.

Topics: Mobile technology, geospatial web, energy, community sustainability, collaboration and technology, climate change, land use change, asset management, data on the internet, and best practices in government, education and in the private sector.

Submit your abstract online by June 24th:
http://www.esf.edu/nysgisconf/2009/papers.htm