Author Archives: Andy Woodruff

About Andy Woodruff

I grew up as a regular visitor to Boston, my mom being a native (a BU alumna from Malden), and became an area resident when I moved to Cambridge in 2008 after finishing graduate school in Wisconsin. That's a lifetime short of being a real "local" by the standards around here, but I'm doing my best. I think I can at least imitate the Boston accent better than most people from my home state of Ohio. My day job is being a partner in Axis Maps, where we do custom interactive cartography and also sell typographic map posters. Sometimes I also post things on my personal site, too. Cartography is more than a day job, though; I've been exploring Boston by mapping it since I got here—by foot, bicycle, train, and study. There's hardly a better way to learn about and appreciate the city.

Blue and Bluer: Massachusetts and Boston 2012

Posted on December 14, 2012 by

You’ve seen tables and maps of counties and towns with the numbers for President Obama and Governor Romney in November’s election. But you may not have seen the detailed story in Boston. Well, that’s what we present above, in collaboration … Continue reading →

Posted in Political | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Handy turkey maps of Boston

Posted on November 21, 2012 by and

(Or, “Bostonography goes back to kindergarten.”) This town is no stranger to turkeys. Above is a rude, slow pedestrian near Harvard Square, for example. Wait, maybe Harvard Square is a turkey! We tried our hand at mapping this thought: Actually, … Continue reading →

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Visualizing Hubway, for real this time

Posted on November 5, 2012 by

How convenient. As soon as we got around to our previous post, in which we mapped some Hubway bike sharing data, a new visualization contest started. This time, MAPC and Hubway invited people to visualize every Hubway trip to date … Continue reading →

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MBTA + Boston Bikes Visualization

Posted on October 4, 2012 by and

Back in January, the MBTA and City of Boston sponsored a developer challenge to develop new apps and visualizations making use of real-time bus locations and Hubway bike sharing station data. For the visualization challenge, they provided three days’ worth … Continue reading →

Posted in Transportation | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Street, Road, and Avenue

Posted on September 4, 2012 by

Our friend Derek Watkins recently made a map which he claimed copied something I once did (although he did it much more beautifully), so why don’t we return the favor? He also made a few other maps of Portland, Oregon … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged | 11 Comments

You can’t get here from there

Posted on July 26, 2012 by

There’s an excellent Far Side cartoon of which I’m often reminded around here: a man in a car has asked a farmer for directions from Point B to Point A, as indicated by the map in the man’s hand. The … Continue reading →

Posted in Transportation | Tagged , | 35 Comments

Crowdsourced neighborhood boundaries, Part One: Consensus

Posted on July 2, 2012 by

UPDATE! We’ve got a new and better version of the neighborhood mapping project! Head on over to bostonography.com/hoods! OLDER UPDATE: There’s also a newer map of what’s described below. As you may recall, we’re running an ongoing project soliciting opinions … Continue reading →

Posted in Geography, Projects | Tagged , | 90 Comments

Typographic Boston and Massachusetts

Posted on June 7, 2012 by

Typographic maps—that is, maps constructed mostly by typography—are quite the rage these days. I think I got in on, well, if not the ground floor then a fairly low level of the fad some four years ago with a small … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged | 3 Comments

Life: The Boston Number

Posted on May 15, 2012 by

Ah, the satirical map. The other day we ran across this delightful 1911 map illustration by Paul Goold on the cover of Life magazine. A child, simultaneously having a healthy glow but looking rather sickly, and clearly being what we … Continue reading →

Posted in Historical | Tagged , | 5 Comments

Wanted: your map of Boston neighborhoods

Posted on April 11, 2012 by and

Let’s settle this. Over and over it’s been made clear that there is little agreement on the precise boundaries of Boston’s neighborhoods. Most people agree on the existence of the major neighborhoods, but everyone has different opinions on where one … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged , | 28 Comments