Mapping Main Street

Main Street Portrait-Durham, NC by Jill Strauss

Mapping Main Street — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 01:01:12 +0000

Downtown Durham, North Carolina is filled with old tobacco warehouses, more and more of them now being converted into hip lofts, offices, and retail shops. Durham’s renaissance has come slowly, and only after decades of dormancy. Native son Gayford Caston has a small shoe repair shop on Main Street. He’s open 7 days a week. When he’s not fixing torn leather on his old Singer sewing machine, replacing worn soles on his shoe jack, or erasing black marks on scuffed boots, Caston loves to chat, and reminisce about the old Durham, with his customers.

Gayford Caston, Main Shoe Repair Man, Durham, North Carolina from Jill Strauss on Vimeo.

Many thanks to Jill Strauss who produced this piece for “The Short Audio Documentary,” a course taught by John Biewen at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University.

You can also check out Jill’s photo slideshow, here.

Wisconsin Photographer Brings Viewers to a Dreamy Main Street

Matthew Long-Middleton — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 18:51:04 +0000

Amy Fichter uses her iPhone and an antique twin lens reflex camera to capture surprising images of Main Streets throughout Wisconsin.

Her exploration, inspired by Mapping Main Street, has given her new insight into her own art and community: “Through working on this project I have learned more about who my neighbors are, what they care about, and how they identify themselves. I have learned about the history of these people and places. I have been surprised at the treasures I find.”

Her show opens at the Lake Pepin Art & Design Center on Saturday, February 6 and runs through March 27.

Radio Rookies

Mapping Main Street — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 00:21:44 +0000

We just finished a workshop with WNYC’s Radio Rookies Short Wave program in Flushing, Queens, NY. High school students from East-West School of International Studies and the Frank Sinatra High School for the Performing Arts created four portraits of Main Street – from memories of the “Flushing Pimp” to the search for the perfect steam bun.

Mapping Main Street – Defining Community, One Metropolis At A Time

Matthew Long-Middleton — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:51:42 +0000

Jesse and Kara caught up with Urban Omnibus to talk about how Mapping Main Street got started and the possibilities of using collaborative documentary as a tool for urban planning. Urban Omnibus is a dynamic website connecting journalists, architects, planners, designers, artist, activists, scholars and citizens all seeking to create a new kind of conversation about design and New York City.

Look under the hood

Matthew Long-Middleton — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:20:05 +0000

See how the creative gears came together to bring Mapping Main Street to life, as Kara, Jesse and James share their insights and inspirations at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society lunch seminar.

Official Launch of new Website

Mapping Main Street — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 21:04:10 +0000

Today was the official launch of the new website. Here’s the email we sent, a sort of guide to the best of Mapping Main Street so far…

Second NPR Story: In Ariz. Town, Main Street is a Border Crossing

Mapping Main Street — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 00:38:52 +0000

The end of Main Street in San Luis, Ariz., is a border crossing station that connects the city to San Luis Rio Colorado in Mexico.

Our second story in the series airs today on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday. It is about Main Street in San Luis, Arizona, which runs straight into the border with Mexico. Listen to it on NPR’s website.

The sum is more than its parts:

Matthew Long-Middleton — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 00:15:53 +0000

Wondering how Mapping Main Street came to be? Turns out it’s one part lots of hard work, plus one great opportunity, add several friends and colleagues to guide you, plus creative problem solving and you get something much larger than you could ever hope for, something 10,466 streets large.

Learn much more by checking out this short essay by Mapping Main Street’s Kara Oehler she wrote for the Association for Independence in Radio (AIR).

You can learn even more about the public radio system and other exciting creative media projects in this article from Current-the newspaper about public TV and radio in the US.

Word of Mouth shares the stories behind the stories

Matthew Long-Middleton — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 01:04:09 +0000

Where can you inner-tube through snake infested waters directly under a local bar? Ann Heppermann and Kara Oehler share with New Hampshire Public Radio’s Word of Mouth what it’s like to wade in the sometimes mysterious and exciting waters of radio production.

First story airs on NPR

Mapping Main Street — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 10:00:29 +0000

The first story of the series – “In Chattanooga, Main St. Is A Prostitution Strip” – aired today on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday.

On the surface, Main Street in Chattanooga, Tenn., looks nice. There’s a newly developed arts district with galleries, upscale restaurants, a packed breakfast joint called the Bluegrass Grill, even houses that have been certified as environmentally friendly. But if you stray from these newly renovated blocks, there’s a different side to Chattanooga’s Main Street.

“In Chattanooga, we have this underbelly,” Brother Ron Fender says. “You can walk down Main Street, and you don’t know that just over there, there’s prostitutes — or just over there is a camp where people sleep in the woods at night.”

Listen on NPR’s site, watch the video above or click on the Chattnooga feature in the gallery to see it within the Tennessee route.