Data Day Reflection: NYC Public Space App

This summer, we hosted our first Data Day: an in-person meet-up for like-minded individuals passionate about the intersection of urbanism and civic technology in the community advocacy space. This inaugural event highlighted the NYC Public Space App (iOS/Google), a new project by technologist Chris Whong that allows users to both explore public spaces across the five boroughs in one easy-to-use mobile-based map and contribute photos and descriptions to help build an even more comprehensive guide to New York City’s publicly accessible areas.

We gathered together on a sunny August afternoon at Brooklyn Public Library’s Greenpoint Branch, which maintains an Environmental Education Center, a hub for environmental awareness, activism, and education in the community. We were excited to collaborate with the Greenpoint Library and Education Center staff Acacia Thompson and Julie Pienkowska, who provided much appreciated insight on activism and ecology in Greenpoint and Williamsburg.

Kicking off the event, Chris discussed his work as a technologist, how the project came to be, and the use of civic technology in public space advocacy. He shared his process of navigating and consolidating the different datasets used to develop the map as well as some of the decisions he made about the user experience. Some unconventional spaces, like schoolyards that are publicly accessible outside of school hours and pathways created through developer incentives, are not immediately evident on mainstream services like Google Maps and, even in person, can be difficult to recognize as the public resource that it is.