A picture may say a thousand words, but it’s much more difficult to index. Case in point: the New York Times archive. Doing a search for the address of Mediaite’s home office on Broadway turns up, disconcertingly, several turn-of-the-century fires* (one in 1879 and one in 1904 with a “peculiar quality of smoke”) and Broadway “ablaze” (with bunting, for the Centennial of the Constitution). But no photos.

A colleague (who is handsome and wise) recently discovered an old Media Metrix report delineating “World Wide Web Audience Ratings” for December 1998. It’s a remarkable study, categorizing thousands of sites and conglomerated web companies. all of the component elements, but it’s unrecognizable. As though they’re all brands made up for movies.

Governor Paterson’s favorite person in New York these days is probably Hiram Monserrate, the former New York State Senator whose political path has gone…awry. A few weeks ago, the Times’ J. David Goodman looked at Monserrate’s 2008 campaign website, which was still allowing comments. (The comments he was receiving were not particularly flattering.) In the piece, Goodman asked an interesting question: How many orphaned campaign sites litter the Internet? That, of course, was a challenge.

I recently stumbled on a little antique market and, there, a 1977 issue of New York magazine. In this particular issue: Seattle Slew’s chances in the Triple Crown (good), the opening of Studio 54 (bananas), and a shocking review of Annie Hall. But check out the inspirational cover story for our friends in the media industry. For if you’re struggling every day to publish magazines and newspapers that, unfortunately, probably won’t be along much longer (or websites that, unfortunately, will) – at least you’re not making $23,200 a year.*

Everything I know about Chatroulette I learned in the 80s from Pretty in Pink.

I came into the lobby of my building a few weeks ago, and stumbled upon 1974. There, in a brick cube about three feet per side, were the brand new Manhattan white pages. Just off the press, wrapped in plastic, sitting and waiting for people to spirit them away. Which, of course, no one did. It’s 2010. It may as well have been a pile of typewriter ribbon or ticker tape. Even if the Internet didn’t exist (which it does) (meta!), who has a landline any more? I haven’t had a landline since I had to get one for my DSL – in 1999.

the fate of newspaper comics is uncertain, but guessable. Their entertainment value had already been supplanted before the Internet eviscerated their delivery mechanism. But the Internet may also be the cartoon’s salvation – from Dilbert (likely the first and last major cartoon to jump from the Internet to newsprint) to XKCD to Penny Arcade to Cyanide and Happiness, cartoons are flourishing online.

We come here not to praise the new cartoon, however, but to eulogize its predecessor.

3D is old news. Yeah, it’s coming to TV in real-time, and James Cameron seems to have an affinity for it.* Great. But the technology has been around forever. As in, since the 1890s. The classic image of people wearing 3D glasses at the movies is from the 1950s, after all – half a century [...]

A web developer and former Columbia student undertook a unique project: sketching the evolution of a New York City block, from 1795 to today. The resulting animation, dubbed “The Block” (specifically, Eldridge Street between Rivington and Stanton), is rough in its details but gives a good sense of the highs and lows of the street’s [...]

Carl Malamud, noted independent archivist and champion of making information from government agencies accessible, is sounding a call (wisely using the robust megaphone that is Boing Boing): public video should be public. A veteran of many institutions you’ve heard of (MIT Media Lab, Mozilla Foundation, Center for American Progress) Malamud notes that to view public [...]

One of the more appealing things about living in New York City is that the high number of pedestrians means that an archaic mode of communication remains viable: posters. (One of the less appealing things: that those posters occasionally advertise things like this.) Posters were our forefathers’ billboards – but unlike those-that-shall-never-be-lovely-as-a-tree, posters are at [...]

Today, the Yankees will get a ticker tape parade to celebrate their World Series win. One hundred years ago — in 1909 — a ticker tape parade made its way up Broadway celebrating a very different occasion — and very few millionaires were involved.

There are times that having the last name “Bump” is advantageous. Most of said times occur post-elementary school. But the name is memorable, it’s easy to spell – although you might be surprised how often people ask me to spell it. Most of all, though: it’s uncommon. Uncommon enough, in fact, that Bumps can generally [...]

In college, I imagined a system that would record, from the moment of birth until the time of death, any person’s movements and gestures and, through the use of some sort of goggles, would superimpose those movements over the world around him. For example, you’d be able, with these goggles, to see multiple manifestations of [...]

On July 22, 1941, a young girl watches from the window of her parent’s apartment as her neighbors – he in a top hat, she clutching a bouquet – leave for their honeymoon. The video was shot, of course, to capture a special moment in the lives of the neighbors. But it is significant now because of that little girl - Anne Frank, about a year before her family went into hiding.

Walking into any library, there is an index showing everything that is included and where to find it. The Internet has no such directory, just an earnest tour guide in Google who can tell you what he’s seen. But there are some great tools on line to help you sort it out. So in the spirit of the helpful guy at the information desk, let me share them with you.

Eight years ago Philip Bump was living in California and woke up to the already-burning Twin Towers – a moment that would have seemed dream-like had it not been instantaneously jarring.

Like a growing number of others in a time obsessively concerned with the “digital divide”, he went to his desktop computer to get more information. Unlike many others, though, he took screen grabs of the sites as he visited them.

There is a natural inclination for us to want to explore a world we know without the general limitations we usually experience. This is the fascination with The Sims, in which we can be trimmer, richer and have non-Ikea furniture. (For those of you with non-Ikea furniture already — ooh, aren’t you fancy?) It’s why, [...]

This photo is a solved mystery; a compact set of clues and information revealing the incidental way in which it came to be. Looking closely at it reveals the big picture — a trolley headed through New York’s Midtown West (note the ’59th St. & 7th Ave.’ destination sign) sometime in the early 20th century. [...]