do you even know where north is?

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do you find it weird when people can't orientate themselves, and point confidently in the direction of peckham, say (where they lived half their life), except they point in completely the wrong direction? ok i sometimes get confused indoors with very labyrithine buldings, but generally i know what wall faces what compass point, and what direction places i know well are

― mark s, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I have a very good internal cpompass and therefore on the odd occasion (after being spun around blindfold and dragged through the streets of Prague say) when I have had to reorient myself I have felt very, very - er - disoriented.

Ahem.

― Pete, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I feel more secure being able to orient myself in that way. I also like maps and am a bit bemused by people who don't understand them or turn them upside down when travelling north to south, things like that.

― David, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

People with no sense of direction can just get lost as far as I'm concerned, I won't help them.

(do you see what I did there?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?)

― DG, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

(ha ha ha ha). Maybe we *like* being lost, did you think of that? You can keep your rationalist maps and compass points, tools of the geographical oppressors.

― Ellie, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I prefer a more relativist, experiential mode of orientation.

― Ellie, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I know where it is when I'm there. But I know Peckham's at the bottom on the right-hand side.

― Oglander, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

if i think about it (and can see where the sun is) i can just about give you the compass points, but when people give me directions to places that involve "turn into this street on the south side" or "turn west into so and so street" i get confused. why not just say left or right going towards such and such? and yes i am one of those people who will go into a shop and come out and not know which way i was walking up the street before. and i sometimes get left and right mixed up. I AM SORRY OK?

however i am EXCELLENT at reading maps and navigating. so there.

― katie, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

no i know there are people like T — and maybe Ellie? — who really don't much mind, so when T points to Peckham (where she was born and raised), she will point completely obviously randomly, and laugh, and then point in the other direction, and say "or maybe that way". It's more the inability of people who kind of DO want to know that surprises me. I don'ty get how you can NOT know>

On the other hand, I can't tell left from right w/o a great complicated kerfuffle, so maybe I shd just shutup or buzz off.

― mark s, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i know where my head's at! (usually)

― katie, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

No, mark, you're right. IT's more that other things are usually pressing harder on my head. I can read a road map and follow directions. I'm more bothered about how to get somewhere (at a local level, preferably using shops rather than street names as reference points) than knowing where it *is*.

― Ellie, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I do know where Cornwall, Newcastle, Brighton and East Angular are. Peckham's a bit of a mystery, though.

― Ellie, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I have an appalling sense of direction and am almost guaranteed to pick the wrong way to go when faced with a choice. I have even tried bluffing myself and thinking aha you think it's this way so it must be the other one but I still get lost. Like Katie though I am pretty good at map reading.

― Emma, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I have an odd relationship with North & South. Generally, they cause me no problem. If there's a natural barrier somewhere, though (e.g. the River Thames) then I always think North is the direction away from the barrier. That is to say, I think of Blackheath as being North of the Trafalgar Rd end of Greenwich. I think of Blackpool Tower as being North of the sea front. By the time I'm a reasonable distance from the river (Peckham, say) this ceases to be a problem.

I'm sure this arises from growing up in a seaside town on the South coast.

― Tim, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm OK with north and south in the UK but if I go to France I am convinced that Calais is in the south.

― Davel, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I usually have a really good sense of direction, but then I went on holiday and couldn't find anything. I spent an hour walking around the same five streets trying to find our appartment.

― Anna, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Topically enough it is always at Glastonbury that my crap sense of direction kicks in. I am always quite convinced I am going the right way till I realise that I really should have passed Landmark X by now and I am totally lost. The first year it was so bad that my mates had to draw a big X on the little map you can put round your neck for where our tent was so if I got lost I could get someone to bring me back. Obviously this is the only chink of stupidity in my flawlessly brilliant brainy armour. Ahem.

― Emma, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Pointing behind me in the pub last night (re: Koreans), was in no way towards Charing Cross Road, was it?

The roads round here are too bendy to way for sure which way the sea is (which is about 3 feet from here), though I know the general orientation of things relative to each other. My knowledge of counties is apalling. Various people I met from Surrey I assumed lived somewhere between Essex and Hertfordshire. Aso I can't be given left/right directions without pointing (though I can remember it then, and I have no problem knowing which is my right hand).

― Graham, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

my computer monitor has "L" And "R" written on it onv the appropriate sides of the screen, via magic marker and sticky labels, so i can do the captions properly: nevertheless more than once the mag has come out with "RIGHT: [xyz]", when [xyz] is very clearly and obviously on the left. (Not clear/obvious to me, but to everyone else...]

― mark s, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

based on the position of the sun and time of day, I can tell N,S,E,W...on a cloudy day I can still tell. It's instinctive.

― jel --, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Though, I do have to point and say Never Eat Shredded Wheat.

― jel --, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i love all this stuff, i love maps, and i love knowing what is where without recourse to the map (the map of london is slowly becoming precisely imprinted on my brain)

which is why i found it depressing when H thought Kent was north of london, even though she had to travel north out of london to get back to leeds on a regular basis. mind you, not as bad as when she didn't know which was france and which was africa on a globe

― gareth, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

My knowledge of counties is apalling. Various people I met from Surrey I assumed lived somewhere between Essex and Hertfordshire.

There is nowhere between Essex and Hertfordshire.

― David, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Gareth you don't seem to understand how appalling sense of direction works. I know pretty much where counties/cities/countries are but when I come out of the tube station I always stomp off in completely the opposite direction. Oh dear.

― Emma, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

My mnemonic is Never Eat Soggy Weetbix. Which is almost the samethingreallywow. I am good with the map reading which I think is a learnt thing. Im sure Im a one of those girls that, once profficient in this skill is extremely proud of it, which I fear tries to make up for my otherwise dizzy inner compass. oh i made myself yawn I hate gender cliches

― jeskam, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I've got a terrible sense of direction, especially when there are tall buildings around. When I can see the sun I can at least not go in the *opposite* direction, but there's three others I could have wrong.

― Maria, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I wuv maps, and tend to navigate by forming internal maps in my head, so I nearly always know where North is. Unfortunately my mind is occasionally very bad at gauging the angle of very obtuse road junctions which can lead to over confident striding off on totally inappropriate short cuts. Eg Upper Street/Holloway Road which my mental map unit is convinced is something like 120 degrees when it's more like 170. This has led to a couple of embarassing meanders round Barnsbury, with me expecting to hit Upper Street any minute until finally finding myself at Angel rather than La Porchetta.

― RickyT, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

do you even know who you ARE?

― Sonic Subjunkie, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

yeah, rickyt, agreed, i always think of camden road and holloway road as being at right angles, which would have made camden road in the direction of camden easterly rather than southeasterly. i know it isn't, but my instinct says it is

― gareth, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Navigation truly is a dying art. What is it about modernisation that completely robs us of our innate abilities, like our sense of direction??
Tools like map quest are the worst! I know people who can't deviate one iota from the damn turn-by-turn directions they get. I feel like you should always have a sense of what direction you're facing, and what direction you have to go to get to your destination.
I'll put hand-eye coordination and conversation skills on the list of abilities we're losing, too.
And why would anyone *want* to point at Peckham, btw?

― C J, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't think you should ever need to know where North is unless you are covering/discussing long distances. Otherwise as Katie says what is wrong with left and right? (Unfortunately I know not my left and right either, but that's my own problem. Unless I am a passenger in a car that you are driving, then it is very much your problem as well.)

― Archel, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

It's dying because of TALL BUILDINGS, CJ! Hobbit holes and underground lairs like Lex Luthor's are much preferable. So there'd be no way of telling your direction from the sun while walking around underground, but above, there'd be nothing in the way.

― Maria, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I know where North is but I'm hopeless at left and right. I have two lefts: my left and your left. If I'm sitting on the right then my left is right but if I'm sitting on the left then my left is left, if you get what I mean.

If other people knew their Nth Sth East West then I would be able to speak in those terms instead and so all this bother about my left, your left and right would not have to exist.

I turn maps upside down because if you are travelling South then South is forwards and it makes no sense to have forwards being the direction towards you instead of the direction away from you. Only nutcases to not turn maps around to the direction they are heading.

It really shits me when people get their ups and downs and Norths and Souths mixed up. How can anyone possibly ever think that South could be up. How wrong is that? "I'm going up to Tassie" sounds ridiculous (unless you're in Antarctica) and "I'm going down to Brisbane" sounds bloody stupid unless you are North of Brisbane when you say it.

I am constantly surprised at how few people know North, South, East and West though. Saying to someone "I'll meet you on the NthWest corner of King and Lonsdale" invariably met with confusion. Madness.

― toraneko, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"I can't tell left from right w/o a great complicated kerfuffle, so maybe I shd just shutup or buzz off."

Just like Tony Blair HEH HEH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I do not know where North is. I know he did a terrible kiddiepop show called Get It Together after leaving Basil Brush. He was born to sing, apparently.

― Rev Etments, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I know where North is, it's where the street numbers get more bigger.

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

t: certain australian aboriginal peoples had a language where there was no left-right and only absolute orientation. It worked quite well in that enviornment.

― Sterling Clover, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

It's _EASY_. Keep the mountains on yr left, you are going north.

― Hunter, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

There's no sun in England, only dense fog everywhere, right?

― Kris, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

How can people not know left from right? It's simple, your left is on the same side as the hand your watch is on (unless you're a freak)

― jamesmichaelward, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm generally good at orientating myself and have a good sense of direction. The ignorance of where places are is a separate matter: I find quite a few Londoners have no idea of anything beyond the M25. When I lived in Bristol, one old friend, a Londoner, offered to drop in on me while at a friend's wedding in Norwich. It was as if 'not in London' was some tiny corner of the country where all that uninteresting geography is squeezed up together. Weird.

Of course I've not been outside the M25 in over a year, so I expect my wider geographical knowledge is atrophying fast.

― Martin Skidmore, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i don't wear a watch cuz the magnetic phase-shift between my main brain and my ancillary brain makes them stop

― mark s, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I am clearly a freak as I am right-handed and wear my watch on my right wrist. It causes difficulties when writing, but is an affectation I cannot shift. I have no idea of my left from my right and my friend's suggestion of "Ralph" and "Louie" to remember them didn't help and I keep remembering Judy Blume's 'Forever' and laughing, thus making us miss the right (left) turning.

― Madeleine, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Its easy in Toronto, streets tend to run north/south and east west. Well its away from lake Ontario and along the shore but whose counting.

― Mr Noodles, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I know where north is, except once when I went to Wellington, I got confused.

At Quoin Cliff on Tuesday, s and I had an orientation exercise, we pointed to Antarctica and the Chatham Islands. Then we stopped pointing.

― rainy, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

b/c earlier we had pointed at a sheep and it DIED. Truly.

― rainy, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Now I will be even more confused about left and right. For some reason my left wrist is allergic to nickel but my right isn't, so I wear my watch on the right. At least, I think it's the right... waaaahhh. It's tragic but the only way I can tell in times of stress is by miming the action of writing (which I do with my right hand).

― Archel, Thursday, 27 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

five months pass...

-- Martin Skidmore ([email protected]), June 26, 2002.

I know what you mean; when i was on holiday I was told by a drunk Londoner (who's oppininion was exactly the same when sober) that as I was from Bristol I was a Northerner, despite the fact that Bristol is further South than parts of London.

― Ed Woods, Wednesday, 27 November 2002 14:22 (twenty-three years ago)

I haven't got a fucking clue.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 27 November 2002 18:22 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm from Bristol too Ed. Tim H here (who is from Exeter) tells me that he regards Bristol as the North-East. "You're virtually geordies," he has said.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 27 November 2002 18:48 (twenty-three years ago)

three years pass...

ok here is a weird cultural phenomena: whenever (almost whenever) you see a map of scott's last march, it is upside down -- ie the south pole is at the top

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 21 April 2006 09:04 (twenty years ago)

Skipping 12 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

Beyond there be monsters (xpost)

― TS: Mick Ralphs vs. Ariel Bender (Dada), Friday, 21 April 2006 10:36 (twenty years ago)

i don't know where watford is!

scotland is different, that's not north, that's a different country. i am part-scottish, i like it there! (except the cold.)

― The Lex (The Lex), Friday, 21 April 2006 10:37 (twenty years ago)

I'd never have guessed you were part Scottish, Alex MacPherson

― TS: Mick Ralphs vs. Ariel Bender (Dada), Friday, 21 April 2006 10:39 (twenty years ago)

neither would I

― RJG (RJG), Friday, 21 April 2006 10:42 (twenty years ago)

If he were *really* Scottish, he'd be Aleister MacPherson, though.

― Henrietta Leavitt and the Cepheid Variables (kate), Friday, 21 April 2006 10:43 (twenty years ago)

In new york state, "native nycers" think Poughkeepsie is "upstate" LOL

― JW (ex machina), Friday, 21 April 2006 10:45 (twenty years ago)

the fact that alastair and alexander are basically the same name is a great source of joy to me - a campbell and myself, made for each other!

― The Lex (The Lex), Friday, 21 April 2006 10:46 (twenty years ago)

That's sick, Lex. That's sicker than my Boris Johnson thing. (Actually another Alexander, but he goes by his middle name.)

― Henrietta Leavitt and the Cepheid Variables (kate), Friday, 21 April 2006 10:47 (twenty years ago)

alastair campbell is more manly than boris johnson. and more muscled too. he runs marathons!

― The Lex (The Lex), Friday, 21 April 2006 10:48 (twenty years ago)

I thought street numbers got bigger as you moved away from the Town Hall (or other building designated as The Centre), with Number 1 being first on the left.

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Friday, 21 April 2006 10:49 (twenty years ago)

weird (and this time possibly dull, as as far as i know this is just me) cultural phenom II: whenever i look at a map of new york i assume that the top (= harlem etc) is pointing south (hence that long island, instead of travelling out to sea, is further inland than manhattan)

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 21 April 2006 10:49 (twenty years ago)

Weren't there a few kings of Scotland called Alexander? (Don't ask anyone in Scotland 'cos they don't teach Scottish history there)

― TS: Mick Ralphs vs. Ariel Bender (Dada), Friday, 21 April 2006 10:50 (twenty years ago)

yes, there were

― RJG (RJG), Friday, 21 April 2006 10:50 (twenty years ago)

Mark S, that is the strangest thing I've ever heard.

However, the thing that annoyed me about the NYC subway map is that it forms every child's view of what consitutes direction in NYC, and it is COMPLETELY WRONG, i.e. the island does not point due North, and none of the avenues go due north.

There is only one perfect east/west aligned street in all of Manhattan, and it sticks out at a strange angle to the rest of the grid system. (Oh, the joy of the Cooper Union, that they used to teach us such things.)

― Henrietta Leavitt and the Cepheid Variables (kate), Friday, 21 April 2006 10:52 (twenty years ago)

an artificial north, in a city, is as good, if not better than, a "true" north, I think!

― RJG (RJG), Friday, 21 April 2006 10:54 (twenty years ago)

Yes, but that makes three Norths! True North, Magnetic North, and NYC North! No wonder New Yorkers are so confused.

― Henrietta Leavitt and the Cepheid Variables (kate), Friday, 21 April 2006 10:55 (twenty years ago)

Also, it causes for trouble with those giant massive buildings not being aligned to the sun, that some streets never ever get any sunlight, ever.

― Henrietta Leavitt and the Cepheid Variables (kate), Friday, 21 April 2006 10:57 (twenty years ago)

haha in the original short story that THE THING is based on ('who goes there?" i think) magnetic north is caused by a giant alien spaceship under the polar icecap

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 21 April 2006 10:57 (twenty years ago)

Not to mention that other boroughs have their own unaligned grid systems! Brooklyn has at least 2.

― JW (ex machina), Friday, 21 April 2006 10:59 (twenty years ago)

Uhhhhh, excuse me, ma'am, there's one more

http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/usa/oliver-north/oliver_north_finger.jpg

― TS: Mick Ralphs vs. Ariel Bender (Dada), Friday, 21 April 2006 10:59 (twenty years ago)

Only natives and mathematicians can figure out the grid system of Queens. It is a law unto itself. Quite simple once you've figured out the addressing system, but until you do, a recipe for being lost and ending up somewhere in darkest Astoria.

― Henrietta Leavitt and the Cepheid Variables (kate), Friday, 21 April 2006 11:00 (twenty years ago)

Also, it causes for trouble with those giant massive buildings not being aligned to the sun, that some streets never ever get any sunlight, ever.

I'm not so sure about the logic behind this but you are operating with more caffeine and wakefulness.

― JW (ex machina), Friday, 21 April 2006 11:01 (twenty years ago)

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040528.html

― JW (ex machina), Friday, 21 April 2006 11:03 (twenty years ago)

Well, OK, it only really works during certain times of the year, depending on the solstice, but because the sun is never directly overhead in NYC, on account of its latitude, it relies on the angle of the sunlight and the angle of the street in order to get sunlight between the buildings.

Ergo, many of the streets, because the do not point due East/West to capture the rays between sunset and sunrise, never actually get any sunlight at all.

x-post, well yes! Like I said, it only happens at certain times of the year! See, I didn't make it up!

― Henrietta Leavitt and the Cepheid Variables (kate), Friday, 21 April 2006 11:05 (twenty years ago)

I can remember going up to the pier in LIC to watch the sun align with the streets. It was quite impressive.

― Henrietta Leavitt and the Cepheid Variables (kate), Friday, 21 April 2006 11:06 (twenty years ago)

Ergo, many of the streets, because the do not point due East/West to capture the rays between sunset and sunrise, never actually get any sunlight at all.

Bbbbut even if they DID point east/west, the sun originates/terminates south of due e/w ... due to the latititude. But I think if you think about it geometrically, this would still increase the average amount of light certainly....

I think that due E/W angled streets is actually the optimal configuration because moving away from that angle to increase morning light would negatively affect sunset lighting. But what about a grid angled so that aves run NE/SW and streets run NW/SE.... I think the optimality of this depends on the latitude.

TOO EARLY TO THINK....

COFFEEEEEEEE

― JW (ex machina), Friday, 21 April 2006 11:19 (twenty years ago)

Now, if you wanted to break from a 90 deree grid, there's all kinds of optimizing you can do but I think NYC is too southerly.

― JW (ex machina), Friday, 21 April 2006 11:24 (twenty years ago)

doesn't broadway run north/south?

my house is excellent for a sun trap, every single window is on the south facing side. (yes, every single one!)

― Ste (Fuzzy), Friday, 21 April 2006 11:24 (twenty years ago)

You should have slanty buildings to allow for the latitude.

http://simcity.ea.com/obe/jpg/SLANTY_1.jpg

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Friday, 21 April 2006 11:24 (twenty years ago)

Too southerly in the sense that a sun-optimal grid angle would be very obtuse.

― JW (ex machina), Friday, 21 April 2006 11:25 (twenty years ago)

Broadway is not a straight line, but mostly yes.

― JW (ex machina), Friday, 21 April 2006 11:25 (twenty years ago)

if streets = EW then aves = NS --> the noonday sun's height is merely wasted as a light enabler? (bcz the NS aves wd be lit by the noonday sun however low it rose)

hence i am inclined also to suggest NE/WS and NW/SE as the optimal

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 21 April 2006 11:29 (twenty years ago)

Broadway goes all over the place! Except the bit at the top, where COlumbia tames it.

My big windows are North facing, which is apparently the worst facement, but I think it's good, becuase it's a good light, that is good for painting and things.

Can you imagine what would have happened to London if it had been build on a grid system after the Great Fire of London?

Though I think the grid system is what makes the bits of Manhattan that aren't on it more interesting. It's like the imposition of its original geography imposing on the clinical grid.

― Henrietta Leavitt and the Cepheid Variables (kate), Friday, 21 April 2006 11:30 (twenty years ago)

In the NY State Museum in Albany, they have the original plan for the Manhattan grid. I don't think it had Central Park on it, but it was recognisable.

― Henrietta Leavitt and the Cepheid Variables (kate), Friday, 21 April 2006 11:31 (twenty years ago)

Most of the non-grid streets are old cowpaths right?

― JW (ex machina), Friday, 21 April 2006 11:33 (twenty years ago)

Rochester NY - radial layout

― JW (ex machina), Friday, 21 April 2006 11:34 (twenty years ago)

Cowpaths, deerpaths, Indian hunting trails... Does NYC have lost rivers? (apart from the Canal under Canal St?)

Also, NYC has the craziest building codes due to the light laws. Man, I miss architecture school. I was far more interested in all this stuff than making the buildings stay up and tedious things like that.

― Henrietta Leavitt and the Cepheid Variables (kate), Friday, 21 April 2006 11:34 (twenty years ago)

if you go far enough north/south you have to factor in SUNDOGS!

http://www.nightskyevents.com/sundogsfire.jpg

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 21 April 2006 11:34 (twenty years ago)

i think rivers and streams and some v.famous pond are all mentioned as lost in luc sante's LOW LIFE but i gave my copy to a friend as a last-minute present

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 21 April 2006 11:36 (twenty years ago)

i am getting better at knowing where north is, and i think it's to do with travelling by bike. eg after the second attempt at the greenwich canary wharf space jellyfish walk i went from greenwich to streatham without any familiar landmarks to guide me, going "well it must be over there somewhere... ok now i need to be going a bit more that way..." i was inordinately proud of myself.

actually maybe it only works in london.

― emsk ( emsk), Friday, 21 April 2006 19:40 (twenty years ago)

See, I spent most of my life in northeast Ohio, where it's really easy to remember north: It's where the water is. Everything from there is easy.

― phil d. (Phil D.), Friday, 21 April 2006 21:10 (twenty years ago)

Chicago is the easiest city in the world to navigate, once you've sussed out the grid system.

― gbx (skowly), Friday, 21 April 2006 21:42 (twenty years ago)

I live in North Little Rock, so everywhere is North.

Kinda like the South Pole.

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Friday, 21 April 2006 22:04 (twenty years ago)

Paul Eater is reading, and I will read after him, "A Writer in the West: By a New-Yorker", written by Charles Fenno Hoffman in 1833, which comprises all the letters he sent back home to his loving &tc. from the wilds of his fabulous horseback voyage to the great western lands of... Kentucky, Tennessee and Indiana ..?

i have zero sense of direction, which i think stems from having lived in South Knoxville, having to drive approx. 40 minutes to get to West Knoxville each morning for school, and not realizing until much later that in South Knoxville I was already farther west than my school was? bonkers

― Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Saturday, 22 April 2006 21:09 (twenty years ago)

I think the main reason for giving compass directions (ex "look on the north side of the street") is because even if you go too far and have to turn around, north will still be the same side. Yes, if you're reading off written directions and they say "look right" and then you miss the street and go back, one hopes to be mentally able to translate that to "look left, since we turned" but it doesn't always happen! Plus it's extra mental work which takes just that much longer. Okay, not MUCH longer, but still...SIMPLIFY where possible to allow fewer chances for error.

I have zero sense of direction and get absent-minded while walking and am perfectly capable of thinking "must transfer to L train to Brooklyn" and then taking, say, the F downtown from Soho because "downtown" is the direction of "Brooklyn" (when in reality the L and F transfer point would be UPTOWN from there). Just as a completely hypothetical example. Really. Also incapable of remembering the order of avenues on the upper west side, as I discovered while en route to someone's apt a couple of weeks ago. Columbus vs Amsterdam vs Central Park West vs Broadway? Beats me! So first thing when I pop out of the subway is to determine which way is north.

I would be screwed anywhere without a grid system, I fear.

― Laurel (Laurel), Saturday, 22 April 2006 21:21 (twenty years ago)

Does NYC have lost rivers?

yes, under Minetta Lane among other places

personal interest - apparently there used to be a tributary off the East River on the Upper East Side that ran West from around York and 74th St - anyone know anything about this?

some v.famous pond

the Collect Pond, I imagine

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Saturday, 22 April 2006 21:27 (twenty years ago)

I like to imagine that people in Manhattan are well aware that the grid system is not cardinally aligned, and that that is why, when I first moved here, whenever I got off the subway and asked someone "which way is north?" he or she would invariably say "I don't know, but that direction is uptown."

― nabisco (nabisco), Saturday, 22 April 2006 21:29 (twenty years ago)

But in reality I'm afraid that they were all Mark S in disguise and could not remember which way the island even pointed.

― nabisco (nabisco), Saturday, 22 April 2006 21:30 (twenty years ago)

True, and "uptown" and "downtown" work there, but what abt subs for E and W? "Rightown"? "Thattaway"? Hee.

― Laurel (Laurel), Saturday, 22 April 2006 21:34 (twenty years ago)

"The sunny side of the street before 12 noon" vs "the sunny side of the street AFTER noon" FITE.

― Laurel (Laurel), Saturday, 22 April 2006 21:36 (twenty years ago)

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