From Cover to City: A Manhattan Geolocation Mystery
Hey welcome back to another write-up.
This time I decided to geolocate a book cover. What initially seemed like a straightforward task became a challenge, most of the times things are never as easy as they seem.
Let’s begin!
Question: What is the address of the building shown in the book cover?
The book cover shows an adorned brick building with a red fire escape. The bars in the red fire escape are adorned with heart wrought iron. The stones that frame the windows also contain small sculptures and faces.
In the back of the book we get some brief information that the picture was taken from ‘Shutterstock’. As you all know, Shutterstock is a platform that hosts a multitude of photographers. Needless to say, this doesn’t narrow things down too much for us at all.
In search for the original picture
I began by googling some descriptive terms. Having read the book, I knew that the majority of it took place in New York. Looking up different search terms such as ‘shutterstock New York red fire escape’ eventually returned promising results.
After scrolling through the images of the buildings with fire escapes a match was found. The original cover photograph was taken by Pola Damonte. Though as it can be seen from the description, the information about the building’s location is very vague and not much can be derived from it.
The additional information that we have received though is the full photograph without the words in the book cover covering the majority of the image. We can also see on the right hand side of the picture a white and red brick building. We are beginning to get a better sense of the building and its surroundings.
In the suggested photographs below Pola’s, there was also a picture taken by Marc Venema of the same building. The information that we have received is still vague. However, we are now able to get a clearer view of the building and the red brick building on the right with green stairs. Furthermore, from the angle, we can also deduce that the building we are trying to geolocate is located in a street corner based on the angle of the red brick building on the left hand side.
According to some of the captions associated with the photograph of the building it is located in Little Italy. Maybe we are able to discern a more approximate location of the building based on other clues?
Picking up the puzzle pieces
I looked hard to see if I could find any other written information about the approximate location of the building, but all the context that I could find was that it was somewhere in Little Italy.
So I turned to gathering all of the photographs of the building with the red fire escape and started mapping its features.
What we know about the building is that it is located in a street corner somewhere in Little Italy. The building has a red top and possibly a Chinese medicine shop below it. To the right of the building we have red brick apartments with green stairs.
Dead end: Chinese medicine shop
I thought that the lettering of the Chinese shop would be my lead. It turned out to be a dead end!
Looking for either Yudian, Yunori or 裕典中藥行 in New York did not return any results.
Although a bit unfortunate it is not surprising, given that the image was uploaded online in 2016. Almost 10 years ago.
YouTube walking tours to the rescue
Before booting up Google Earth, drawing out the perimeter of Little Italy and looking for street corners; I decided to first see if there were any walking tours on YouTube of Little Italy.
Near the end of the video, Tours by Foot - New York, showed us a glimpse of the building that we are in search of. The architectural details, the red staircase, the red top and the surrouding buildings are all a match.
Before panning to our target building, the camera also shows a street name and number. 129, Mulberry.
Looking up ‘129 Mulberry New York’ on Google Earth returned promising results. The building that we’ve been looking for is in Hester Street, 197. New York!
Answer: The building is located in Hester Street, 197. New York.
40°43'6.48"N
73°59'53.53"W
As an added bonus we can also use Google Earth’s timeline feature to go back to 2016 and see the lettering of the Chinese medicine shop. :)
Until next time!
Stay curious.
