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Mapping Manhattan Using Strangers’ Hand-Drawn Directons


August 13, 2013 | Andy Cush

To create the homespun map you see above, NYC-based artist Nobutaka Aozaki pretended to be a tourist. Clad in a cheesy baseball cap and toting a Century 21 bag, he walked around Manhattan, asking strangers to draw him directions. After talking to dozens, he assembled their bits of amateur cartography into From Here to There, the crowdsourced tribute to the geography of the borough. Here’s a detailed view of the East Village.

“This is becoming a lost form of communication,”Aozaki told Spoon and Tamago recently. “Most people just pull out their smartphone and try to show me a map. When this happens I tell them I’ll forgot so please draw me directions!”