NEU-YORK, a 4-color lithograph (27" x 43") by Melissa Gould aka MeGo

A four-color lithographic map, printed in an edition of 20, NEU-YORK is an obsessive exercise in cartography with a "horrifying counterfactual proposition" — I have recreated an accurate map of Manhattan, circa 1939 (with no post-War developments like Lincoln Center), by scanning in several vintage maps and then digitally manipulating them — first erasing all Jewish stars representing synagogues and then removing all the street and location names, replacing them (following my own invented system of naming) with street and location names taken from actual Berlin maps of the same period, ultimately imposing 1939 Berlin on 1939 Manhattan in an historical juxtaposition/overlay. I chose paper and ink colors that would replicate the tones of an old map.

NEU-YORK is a cautionary meditation, suggesting what the local geographical reality might have been like had victorious Nazis succeeded in bringing the Third Reich across the Atlantic Ocean in 1945. At the same time it is an exploration of psychological transport, place, displacement and memory. This re-imagining of the city plays with comparison and misrecognition, exploring the coexistence of past and present, fiction and reality.

In this ironic linking of the two cities I know most intimately I am proposing a city in which I would not, in fact, be allowed to exist. Yet NEU-YORK is paradoxically an homage to the German language — my father's mother tongue which I also speak fluently — and the poetic aspects of the German culture, the very same culture that German and Austrian Jews rightfully identified as their own, and which might have been mine to embrace had the historical continuum not been broken.

D E T A I L S:

4-color lithograph on RIVES BFK Gray paper: 27 inches X 43 inches (68cm X 109cm).
Please see this project on my website for a full description and extensive CLOSE-UP views:

www.megophone.com/neuyork.html

PLEASE NOTE: Shipping is estimated here. NY State tax is applicable if I am shipping to NY state. Please contact me for exact costs.
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P R E S S:

Enjoy the Tiergarten!

Charlie Suisman / All-Star Maps / www.manhattanusersguide.com / March 17, 2008
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Schrecklich fun.

www.metafilter.com / January 10, 2008
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Berlin-am-Hudson ... an uncanny, pseudo-historical piece of psycho-geography.

Willkommen in Neu-York (?) / strangemaps.wordpress.com / January 10, 2008
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It takes about 10 unsettling seconds to realize what's wrong with this street map of New York.

Eric McHenry / Distinguishing marks / Boston University Bridge Newspaper / December 15, 2000
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NEU-YORK is an obsessively detailed map of what Manhattan might have looked like if the Nazis had conquered it in World War II

Jason Kottke / www.kottke.org / September 3, 2003
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EICHENSTRASSE, BETWEEN YORCKSTRASSE AND KRONPRIZESSINEN, AND STEP ON IT: If the Nazis had conquered Manhattan in WWII, I would have had a hell of a tongue-twisting time getting home from My Regular Biergarten at Schumannstrasse and Konigen Elizabeth Strasse in the Wilmersdorf section of Neu-York.

Then again, I suppose we'd all have worse problems, like that pesky 'imprisonment, torture, and death' thing ...

Rob Byrnes / robnyc.blogspot.com / September 3, 2003
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An alternate-history map of NYC ... Incredible map ... I highly recommend this one.

Andrew White / www.apeshallnotkillape.org / September 4, 2003
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"Thanks for such a compelling project--awesome."

... "It is a tribute to what I might term 'anal-compulsive-psycho-social-cartography' at its finest — and I mean that as high praise."

... "I can't imagine many history buffs or New Yorkers who wouldn't want one on their wall."

... "(W)ildly creative."

Mark Matthiessen / East Village, New York City / September 7, 2003
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This is why I love the web.

William Slawski / nastybit.blogspot.com / September 4, 2003
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... extraordinario trabajo ...

Ernesto Semán / Idle Memories / www.bonk.com.ar / September 26, 2004
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If you have a heart for cartography and typography, this could make your day - it made mine.

Haiko Hebig / www.hebig.org / September 4, 2003
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What if? One of the fascinations of history is the contemplation of situations that might have occurred had things taken a slightly different turn. What if Henry VIII had been satisfied with one wife and England had remained Catholic? What if the Incas had repelled the conquistadores? And so on.

New York artist Melissa Gould has taken the "What if?" debate to a new level with her latest work ...

NEU-YORK is simply stunning. ... Her loving attention to detail — cartography, typography, colours — has resulted in a map that looks just right for the era. Note: a fast internet connection is advisable here as it's an image intensive site, but the wait is worth the effort. And Gould's project notes make for fascinating reading.

... Again, absolutely fascinating and an example of how the application of imagination can make the "What if?" debate more than just a parlour game.

Eamonn Fitzgerald / www.eamonn.com / September 6, 2003
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obsessive berlinization

Mikel Maron / www.brainoff.com / September 4, 2003
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Melissa Gould transforms history.

Rainer Volz / www.vrtprj.com/weblog / September 4, 2003
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Today Theodor Adorno would have been a hundred years old. Come to think of it, Adorno was a hundred years old most of his life. There will be appropriate celebrations, and the City of Frankfurt will name a square in his honor.

In a similar vein, Melissa Gould has created a map of New York City with the street names, subway stops *usw*, given Berliner names and typography "as if the Nazis had won." ...

No Adornostrasse.

Paul Werner / WOID: A Journal of Visual Language / WOID #IX - 7. This & That / September 13, 2003
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It's as if history had rewritten itself, or a parallel history existed, and New York had fallen under the control of the Third Reich. Effective, and quite chilling.

Sue Williamson / Sue Williamson's New York Diary: Part 1 / www.artthrob.co.za / May 1, 2001
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We would all be speaking German?

NEU-YORK is an alternate New York imagined after a German victory in World War II. It's a detailed map in which postwar landmarks do not exist and every street has been renamed to suit their new Teutonic overlords.

From a historical perspective, this is bunk, of course — but as art, this is wonderful, compulsive stuff.

Jonathan Crowe / www.mcwetboy.net/maproom / September 10, 2003
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The Map Room impresses me again by finding NEU-YORK, a creepy alternate map of NYC imagined after a German victory in WWII.

Jeff Patterson / www.baddaystudio.com / September 12, 2003
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Obsessive is one word...

Hal Dick / www.themaven.net/forum / September 4, 2003
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it freaked me out.

kguppta.pitas.com / September 4, 2003