Memory Mapping with Mapbox
My own version of San Francisco
This side project started when I found a map of my Dad’s from the 1960’s that listed two restaurants that have since closed. I found a Facebook group called “San Francisco Remembered” that helped me find some cool photos of “The Golden Spike” (used to be a great family-style Italian restaurant) and what was most likely the “Alta Mira” misspelled or overheard wrong (a famous swanky restaurant in Sausalito).
Inspired by my husband Mike’s request for a special memento for his birthday of our year in San Francisco — along with a map I have that came out with the movie “The Last Black Man in San Francisco” — I started brainstorming and mining my memory for some of our favorite parks, places, food and memories.
Things don’t stay the same, and the places we remember are already different. But some things remain and the memories are strong.
It took awhile to create a data set from scratch. Over the course of a few days scanned a more modern paper map of San Francisco and slowly created a list of places. Then I went to look at photos on my phone, and chatted more with Mike to get more places. The first 40 locations were off the top of my head, but as I listed places other memories from the our year popped up and led to other memories.
Why use Mapbox? The impression I got while clicking around their tutorials was that their mapping software is highly customizable. Lots of room to style things exactly the way I want. I’m pretty pleased with the 60 places we have strong memories of in SF. I used Google maps to get coordinates of places, but had to remember to flip the ordering of latitude and longitude between Google maps and Mapbox. Here’s an explanation of how the ordering of latitude and longitude isn’t standard across all mapping apps.
So right now I have pins of places and a name/description. I’ve figured out the process of layers and generating map tiles. The next step is to make the descriptions more like a story (add photo or illustration?); more than just a tiny blurb when I feel there’s something extra. There are supposed to be neat ways to customize the map design itself.
I’m not sure if this will become anything more than essentially a journal entry, or the start of a paper-based map I may create with watercolors. But it’s a fun way to remember all the special places and share it with some friends.
