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.

Help us map Allston Christmas

Posted on August 23, 2011 by

2011’s great Moving Day is nearly upon us. We have this crazy idea for the occasion. Well, actually it’s the same idea we have for everything: make a map of it. Tim and I have both spent time in cartography … Continue reading →

Posted in Projects | Tagged , , | 11 Comments

Shaking the municipal Etch A Sketch

Posted on June 21, 2011 by

Fair warning: some day I am going to post long, questionably logical rants and ramblings about boundaries. I have a thing for—actually, against—boundaries invented by humans and what they do and don’t, and should and shouldn’t mean. This is not … Continue reading →

Posted in Geography | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Cantabrigian Namesakes

Posted on June 2, 2011 by

In spite of the borderline comical duplication of street names in the Boston area (often within the city of Boston itself), the streets around here are named for many people, places, and things. They are names we encounter every day … Continue reading →

Posted in Historical, Transportation | Tagged , , | 15 Comments

The Furniture District

Posted on May 6, 2011 by

One of my favorite Simpsons bits proceeds thus: Hank Scorpio: Hammocks? My goodness, what an idea. Why didn’t I think of that? Hammocks! Homer, there’s four places. There’s the Hammock Hut; that’s on Third. There’s Hammocks-R-Us; that’s on Third too. … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged , | 15 Comments

Boston: Fair and Square

Posted on April 26, 2011 by

Whether you blame it on cows, humans, or nature, Boston’s street network is very confusing to visitors and unseasoned newcomers. We cartographers can do nothing but delight in how lost you are going to get. Thence spring my two minimal, … Continue reading →

Posted in Geography, Transportation | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

Mappy (nor)Easter

Posted on April 24, 2011 by

It turns out that searching Google images for “Boston Easter map” returns, among other noise, maps of Boston nor’easters. Luckily today’s forecast looks better than that: Happy Mappy Easter!

Posted in Holiday, Seasonal | Tagged , | Comments Off on Mappy (nor)Easter

Mass Streets

Posted on March 30, 2011 by

Ah, the venerable street map. It is, perhaps, the most common type of map out there in a world of people in motion. From highway atlases to Google Maps, many a map, no matter how complex, is fundamentally designed around … Continue reading →

Posted in Transportation | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

Three-decker diffusion

Posted on March 15, 2011 by

Ah, the triple-decker (or three-decker, if you’re more old school). What makes it special is that it is the vernacular style of Boston but is something that largely goes unseen in the common “Boston” tourist experience. Below is map on … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

A People’s Atlas of Boston

Posted on March 10, 2011 by

(Note: most links in this post have since gone dark, but you can still download the maps here.) We Bostonographers are very interested in people’s personal maps, particularly Kevin Lynch style cognitive mapping, about which Tim has written a Boston-centric … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Footprints of Boston

Posted on March 3, 2011 by

We mapmakers earn our keep by somehow adding value to raw geographic data; that is, the craft requires more than just plotting the location of objects on the Earth’s surface. But sometimes it’s hard to compete with the simple elegance … Continue reading →

Posted in General, Geography | Tagged , | 7 Comments