One could call it cautionary cartography, this map of a thoroughly germanified New York – something that might have happened in an alternate universe, where the Nazis not only won the World War in Europe, but managed to cross the ocean and subdue the United States.
Neu-York is a project by artist Melissa Gould, who writes on the project’s website about its disorienting side-effects, beyond the obvious “horrifying counterfactual proposition”: “(this) is an exploration of psychological transport, place, displacement and memory. This re-imagining of the city plays with comparison and misrecognition, exploring the coexistence of past and present, fiction and reality.”
Gould’s Neu-York is based on several pre-1940 maps of Manhattan, thus excluding post-war developments, and digitally manipulating the material – erasing the synagogues, for one. Street and location names were replaced by names taken from contemporary Berlin maps. Thus, this Manhattan isn’t so much a city conquered and renamed, but one transported across an ocean and transposed on another one – Berlin-am-Hudson, so to speak.
The artist chose methods and colours to give her work a ‘vintage’ feel, resulting in an uncanny, pseudo-historical piece of psycho-geography.
• The project’s website shows 21 detailed maps of Neu-York
• Also, extensive bi-lingual listings of the renamed streets, sights and locations. Some of the renaming is problematic: why does Central Park become Tiergarten when it obviously isn’t a zoo? Others are plain unsettling: the Croton Reservoir in Central Park becomes Wannsee, a Berlin locale forever infamously linked with the conference held there to set up the Endlösung, the extermination of European Jewry.
• The avenues are all named after German kings and emperors.
• The streets are named, in clusters, for birds, wildflowers, plants, grains and herbs, flowers, trees, animals, German composers, operas, ancient German first names, foreign cities, German rivers and German cities. More info on the renaming on the website.
Thanks to Melissa Gould and Larry Sawh for alerting me to this project.
For today’s Berlin, Wannsee is foremost a recreational area, the best known public lake shore. In summer tens of thousands go there for swimming and sun bathing.
Comment by Marc — January 10, 2008 @ 3:29 pm
Reminds me of the KGB maps of London and other cities:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/01/nspy01.xml
Comment by samfire — January 10, 2008 @ 3:31 pm
why does Central Park become Tiergarten when it obviously isn’t a zoo?
Because that’s the name of the equivalent park in Berlin. All the neighborhoods are named for corresponding Berlin ones: Charlottenburg, Neukölln, etc. A little unimaginative, but that’s the reason. (And Central Park does have a zoo in it, as does Berlin’s Tiergarten.)
Comment by language hat — January 10, 2008 @ 3:32 pm
I notice they didn’t do any maps for the neighborhoods Rick Blaine told Major Strasser to avoid in New York.
Comment by jon — January 10, 2008 @ 3:41 pm
[...] Found (of course) at Strange Maps. [...]
Pingback by A subjunctive history map « never enough homework — January 10, 2008 @ 4:06 pm
“Some of the renaming is problematic: why does Central Park become Tiergarten when it obviously isn’t a zoo?”
Because the creator is an Artiste, not a cartographer (and certainly not a historian).
Comment by Derek Lyons — January 10, 2008 @ 4:44 pm
Reminds me of that Philip Dick book ‘The man in the high castle’ where Germany & Japan split up the united states after WWII right down the Mississippi river.
Comment by Craig — January 10, 2008 @ 6:58 pm
This is too surreal. I was just discussing this subject with a bookstore owner on the west coast. It could easily have happened.
Comment by ncrealestateblog — January 10, 2008 @ 7:11 pm
Wilhemshorst, …
Comment by Frederik — January 10, 2008 @ 7:41 pm
At least Wall Street didn’t change its name…
Comment by Darrel Jones — January 10, 2008 @ 7:57 pm
Many thanks for writing about NEU-YORK!
(language hat and Derek Lyons are both correct re my naming Central Park Tiergarten, btw…)
I’m sadly very well aware of Wannsee’s other, more notorious, distinction; there was some irony in name choice here.
The Project Description (on the same main page) details the project as well as my motivation in creating it.
Cheers!
Comment by MeGo (Melissa Gould) — January 10, 2008 @ 8:33 pm
Definitely a head trip.
Comment by godozo — January 11, 2008 @ 3:16 am
One thing stands out for me, though…
I would have thought that they would have named the main north-south thoroughfares with the names of Nazi Germany’s leaders. I can see it now: Speer Wasser, Goering Wasser, etc. Until you get to “Broadway,” just titled “Adolph Hitler”
Comment by godozo — January 11, 2008 @ 3:29 am
It’s a cute idea, but lacks realism.
Comment by secretgeek — January 11, 2008 @ 6:10 am
*shrug* I like it! Having never been to New York myself, I don’t see a problem with this! ;)
Comment by Amkii — January 11, 2008 @ 6:24 am
[...] dar zu legen. In den Kommentaren ergänzen die Leser ihre Beobachtungen. Die Karten sind mal Kunst mal Geographie, mal ist etwas für die Esotherik [...]
Pingback by Seltsame Karten « nerone — January 11, 2008 @ 7:45 am
Tiergarten is a similar wooded area in the middle of Berlin. Tiergarten (lit. Beast Garden) was not a zoo as suggested, but instead apparently a game park. The Berlin city Zoo (Zoologischer Garten) is alocated alongside Tiergarten. However, for literal transposition purposes, Tiergarten is a very good parallel for Central Park.
Comment by Greg — January 11, 2008 @ 7:47 am
Is comment #8 (by “ncrealestateblog”) spam?
Comment by António Martins-Tuválkin — January 11, 2008 @ 12:15 pm
Major Strasser: Are you one of those people who cannot imagine the Germans in their beloved Paris?
Rick: It’s not particularly my beloved Paris.
Heinz: Can you imagine us in London?
Rick: When you get there, ask me!
Captain Renault: Hmmh! Diplomatist!
Major Strasser: How about New York?
Rick: Well there are certain sections of New York, Major, that I wouldn’t advise you to try to invade.
Comment by Dale Worley — January 11, 2008 @ 7:24 pm
I’m not that familar with NYC geography, but it looks like the Lower East Side (one of those places you don’t want to invade) is part of the Mitte district (maps from Houston to Canal and Canal to Chambers). Hell’s Kitchen seems to be renamed Zehlendorf (maps from 34th to 57th, west side).
Comment by Dale Worley — January 11, 2008 @ 7:37 pm
#13, Why “Wasser”? Am I missing something?
#19, I love that quote from Casablanca. I saw it again for the umpteenth time, and now, having made NEU-YORK, I laugh harder.
I would have “invaded” Harlem and upwards until the end of Manhattan Island, but I had size restraints for the print; had I done that the names of things would have been in such a small font they would be impossible to read. So that was a design decision.
Comment by MeGo (Melissa Gould) — January 11, 2008 @ 8:06 pm
At first glance it looks like a genuine 1920s or ’30s map for German tourists in New York. As for renaming streets, it’s not really such a big deal; I’ve lived in places where the same street has borne the names of first Nazi then Soviet leaders, and are now named for writers… It’s still the same street. One thing puzzles me though, why “Neu-York” and not “Neu-Jork”?
Comment by Cudzoziemiec — January 12, 2008 @ 2:50 am
In the 1930s dictionary that was part of my NEU-YORK reference material the entry for “New York” was “Neu-York.”
A point of view on the project, ending with issues of naming:
http://www.megophone.com/burstein.html
Comment by MeGo (Melissa Gould) — January 12, 2008 @ 4:49 am
PBS did a special on WWII and showed a map of the US split in two. The half west was to go to Japan and the East half to Germany.
Comment by Mike — January 13, 2008 @ 6:24 am
When I first glanced at the title I thought, “Interesting, an alternate history map where the Dutch retain control of New York….”
Comment by bicyclemom — January 14, 2008 @ 1:25 pm
Bicyclemom, if it would be about the Dutch then the title would be “Welkom in Nieuw-York”. Although they’d probably rename it to its initial European name, so it would become “Welkom in Nieuw-Amsterdam”…
Comment by Ludwig — January 16, 2008 @ 12:13 pm
I think #3 has the right answer – this isn’t so much a plan of how New York would have looked if the Nazis had invaded; instead they’ve named everything after its Berlin equivalent.
Hence the Statue of Liberty becoming die Siegessaeule, and so-on. I think all the subway stations are named after Berlin S-Bahn stations too, although there are quite a few I don’t recognise (mind you, some probably don’t exist any more anyway).
Comment by Rollo — January 16, 2008 @ 1:54 pm
The comment by “language hat” is right about the Tiergarten. It is the best corresponding park in Berlin. Tiergarten is both a park and the name of a district in Berlin. It means “animal garden” and was so named because it was the royal hunting preserve, not a zoo.
Comment by John — January 16, 2008 @ 3:47 pm
Rollo, indeed I used a 1939 Berlin map as the source for the names in NEU-YORK. However, this map did have an Adolf Hitler Strasse, a Hermann Goering Strasse and a Horst Wessel Platz.
How far the Nazis got with their street re-naming, if at all, by say, 1945, or what they might ultimately have done here, is anyone’s guess. This piece is, among other things, a work of speculation, and as such could have taken infinite other directions in its execution.
Comment by MeGo — January 16, 2008 @ 10:27 pm
Since there are no Nazi Names the map could come from Harry Tutledove’s “Curipus Notions” which has the Entate winning World War I and Germany conquering the U.s later.
Comment by Isaac Cashman — January 16, 2008 @ 11:25 pm
The comment in the intro about Berlin-am-Hudson isn’t so far off. In the 1940s, the Washington Heights neighborhood from Fort Washington Ave to the Hudson, and from 179 (the GWB) to Fort Tryon Park was called “Frankfurt-on-the-Hudson.” Many Jews fleeing Germany and Austria settled there.
Luckily the name didn’t morph into FrOTH. Now it’s Hudson Heights.
And in other name-changing neighborhoods, what locals called Germantown (or “Kleinedeutschland” if I spelled it right) in the 19th Century has become Alphabet City.
Comment by steve — January 16, 2008 @ 11:27 pm
Sorry, the name-changing seems done by pure chance. Especially the subway stations which been named after Berlin S-Bahn stations. For example, there are stations named after a street but the street is not around the station.
Nice idea, but not accurate enough carried out.
Comment by Gulan — January 18, 2008 @ 3:53 pm
Dear Gulan,
I can assure you that the re-naming was not done by chance in any way. There is indeed a method, more than one, in fact. My Project Description explains some of what went into my decision-making process, and there were dozens of decisions to make. It was like assembling a gigantic and complex puzzle.
As far as the S/U-Bahn stations, for the most part I put them near the like-named street, or as close to it as was possible, when I could, if and when such a street was actually there. Sometimes the station is named not for a street per se but for the name of the Berlin neighborhood that street was in, or because it is a name that keeps with the “flavor” of that neighborhood.
For example, the Upper West and Upper East Sides, flanking the park, all have cross-streets named after natural things, in homage to the park itself. So sometimes a U-Bahn station, like Jungfernheide, for example, which is more or less across the park from the Museum of Natural History (now the Pergamon-Museum), at East 77th Street, is there because its name reflects a verdant area in Berlin, not because there is a Jungfernheide Strasse or Weg specifically nearby.
There were cases where I had a name that possessed certain qualities, phonetic or interpretive, which rendered it able to be placed almost anywhere. Or instances where I wanted to use a Berlin name because I “liked it” (call it artistic license if you will) even though it might not appear to match its environs. I also had many more Berlin street names at my disposal than there were actual places to put them — Berlin is much bigger than Manhattan, so I had to select the names I really wanted to use. Nothing was arbitrary, though it may to some, appear so.
Clearly it helps if one knows German or if one happens to know Berlin neighborhoods. I can well imagine, that to certain individuals, this might look like I played the I-Ching to arrive at my namings. Everything, and I mean everything, was very carefully considered.
Comment by MeGo — January 19, 2008 @ 6:26 am
Top work!
Reminded me of the teutonised tube map:
http://homepage.univie.ac.at/horst.prillinger/blog/archives/2004/04/000531.html
– tom
Comment by Tom Anderson — January 19, 2008 @ 2:45 pm
I thought Tiergarden was a pub…
Comment by frodo441 — January 20, 2008 @ 1:58 pm
Dear MeGo,
perhaps my comment was too hard. I’m sure you did your best to make it as plausible as possible.
But as you wrote, for someone you knows Berlin quite good the naming is, I’m sorry to say, sometimes not evident enough.
No offense meant!
Greetings from Germany!
Comment by Gulan — January 26, 2008 @ 4:48 pm
Kein Problem, Gulan!
mfG aus NYC
Comment by MeGo (Melissa Gould) — January 29, 2008 @ 12:18 am
You can thank Churchill.
Comment by cyclepromo — January 31, 2008 @ 4:17 pm
[...] how various denominations of Christianity are distributed throughout the US, say – to the bizarre – a map of Neu-York: how New York would have looked had Nazi Germany conquered it. Personally I like looking at maps that challenge my preconceptions – who knew that Papau New [...]
Pingback by fourth edition » Mapping the World — February 6, 2008 @ 6:02 pm
[...] it to the pros to elaborate on the details, but we’ll just say that if the Nazis were able to re-imagine New York in their own world domination [...]
Pingback by Brain Pickings | Geography, Topography, and Everythingography — April 20, 2008 @ 5:59 pm
[...] they would’ve painstakingly re-named all of Manhattan, but the idea is certainly interesting. Strange Maps dug up this artist, Melissa Gould, who tried to imagine what would’ve happened. Here is a [...]
Pingback by If the Germans had won the War « Bearded Dave @ Wordpress — May 4, 2008 @ 8:55 pm
Interesting, but also bit disturbing, no? Reminds me of Robert Harris’ Fatherland.
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Very impressive that this blog is syndicated through Google and is it something that is just up to Google or you actively created?
Obviously this is a popular blog with great data so well done on your seo success..
The swimming greats you should write about next, my ex was an olympic swimmer!
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Comment by buy nolvadex — October 9, 2008 @ 7:21 am
Awesome map very cool never been to NY
Comment by herbalzshop — November 2, 2008 @ 3:45 am
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Comment by Tony — May 4, 2009 @ 3:31 am
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Pingback by Berlin am Hudson River | Fraulangstrumpf — May 4, 2009 @ 9:26 am
thanks for this map
good
luck
..
Comment by Solomon — May 11, 2009 @ 8:48 am
Vielen Dank
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Muchas gracias
Comment by sun — July 4, 2009 @ 7:29 am