The Thick Boundary of New York (002)

“The Thick Boundary of New York” compiles found outlines of the city as identified by different agencies, histories, and data collection methods. Together, they illustrate the thickness of the city’s perimeter and its many imaginings. What is described in one isn’t necessarily in an other.

Built using Mapbox GL’s API, the various ‘islands’ are revealed by clicking on a boundary, whereupon a more familiar aerial image is shown clipped to the boundary.

Using python, the found boundaries were batch processed in QGIS: transforming them initially to the New York Long Island projection (EPSG 2263); clipping national, state, and municipal data to a particular extent; then differencing from that extent to extract a perimeter polygon; and finally, transforming and exporting that perimeter as a GEOJSON object. The full python script is availble here.

Next Steps:

• Try representing the boundaries without clipping the aerial on hover – either fill the boundary or hide all other lines.
• Dig into QGIS and understand why some layers (i.e. shoreline) were not differencing correctly and producing empty geojson objects. Curate the outline selections once this is resolved.
• Confirm that all layers are clipping the correct way (water versus land)

Data Sources:

NYC Census Tract, 2010
New York City Borough Boundaries, 2010
Mapzen Metro New York City Coastline, Land
Mapzen Metro New York City Coastline, Water
NYC Cable Franchise
NYC DSNY Frequencies
NYC Historic Districts
NYC Hydrography Structures
NYC Municipal Court Districts
NYC Neighborhood Tabulation Areas
NYC Zoning Map Index Quartersection
NYC Zoning Map Index Section
USGS Geology, 1974
NYS Hudson River Estuary Shoreline
NYS Hudson River Estuary Sediment Environment
NYS Hudson River Sediment Type
NYC Coastal Boundary
NYC Fresh Food Stores Zoning