Gothamist: Map of the Day: GoogleCenter of the World

Zach

Thu, 23 Feb 2006 17:50:31 -0500

The geographic center of Boston is Roxbury, so downtown is most certainly not it.

Toby

Wed, 22 Feb 2006 21:06:35 -0500

Does Gothamist know that Grand Central Station is either a post office Lexington Avenue or the IRT subway station that serves Grand Central Terminal. . .

Bob

Wed, 22 Feb 2006 19:35:14 -0500

Isn't it possible that google maps are pre-programmed to center on any city's "City Hall"? Try it with Boston, or LA. Maybe others work too, not sure.

Dave J

Wed, 22 Feb 2006 18:41:42 -0500

What's even freakier is the location of the original Duane Reade's drugstore - between Duane and Reade Sts, natch. It's like the center of an unstoppable epidemic slowly reproducing throughout the city.

ian

Wed, 22 Feb 2006 17:03:36 -0500

ahhh...the centroid issue is out! if you've ever searched for something using a zip code, you might find a point representing that area--it's the weighted average of the polygon. great for techies to optimize dbases, not so good for real people. it's like reducing a book to a paragraph...

Mark

Wed, 22 Feb 2006 16:51:59 -0500

You can type in minutes and seconds as well, and google maps will format it into decimals for you. Enter the following in the search box: 40 42' 51" -74 0' 23" -Mark

ben

Wed, 22 Feb 2006 16:15:35 -0500

Gothamist Locations 1 Center of New York City
See: http://www.ny.com/histfacts/geography.html]]> < longitude>-74.00006388888887 < latitude>40.71416666666669 < range>30000 < coordinates>-74.0000638888889,40.71416666666669,0 **** copy everything above here ****]]>

Joe

Wed, 22 Feb 2006 16:15:14 -0500

I put "manhattan, ny" into Google maps and got near 48th and 6th.

diabolix

Wed, 22 Feb 2006 15:58:32 -0500

Joe's right though I would wonder where the geographical center of Manhattan is because Staten Island doesn't really count as NY in my book.

Joe

Wed, 22 Feb 2006 15:43:20 -0500

Your map is the actual geographic center of the city! Google uses decimal degrees (look in the url for 40.714167, -74.006389). The center is not where many people would intuitively think because Staten Island is so much further south and west than the other boroughs. Pretty prescient of someone to site City Hall there 200 years ago.