EmoriaCustom art prints and star maps
Maps · Collection 01

Boston poster, drawn from the real map

42.3601°N / 71.0589°W · United States

Here the straight streets are the young ones. The tangle belongs to the old peninsula; the long, ruled blocks stand on ground that was still a tidal basin in the middle of the nineteenth century.

You choose the framing, the palette and the words of the caption. The work is drawn from real data, then printed to order in the workshop closest to you.

Compose my Boston poster
What the map shows

A tangle on the old peninsula, ruled blocks on filled water

Begin with the water. The harbour holds the right-hand side of the sheet, its edge cut into piers; the Charles opens into a broad basin on the left; Dorchester Bay fills the lower right corner. Between them, the old centre is a knot of streets that agree on no direction. South of the basin the drawing changes its mind: long parallel streets run west in strict order, crossed at regular intervals. That is Back Bay, and its regularity is the mark of new ground.

Read on

The shoreline of the original peninsula is not on the map, and could not be: it lies under the streets, erased by the fill. What still betrays it is the change of pattern, which is why it survives on either background, with or without buildings. Then follow the green. A thread leaves the Common near the centre, crosses the Fens and follows a small river south-west to a pond at the left edge; the largest park in the chain, Franklin Park, is the green mass at the bottom of the sheet. The rail lines converging on the centre, on the other hand, are drawn too pale to read.

Compose your own

What suits Boston

The palette

Water is the great mass here, and there is a lot of it: harbour, basin and bay share a single ink. Take it deep enough for the piers to stand out in negative along the harbour edge. Green is the second voice, and on this map it is in the data: the Common, the Fens, the river parks and Franklin Park all take the same tint. Choose one that stays clearly apart from the water, because the two touch all along the Fens. Everything else is line work, and the contrast between the tangle and the ruled blocks is carried by the streets alone, whatever colour you give them.

The framing

Portrait, with the centre moved south-west of the engraved point: that is what brings the Fens, Jamaica Pond and Franklin Park onto the sheet without giving up the harbour. Back Bay then sits just left of centre, where the eye lands first. The harbour islands lie further east and stay outside, and so does the Arnold Arboretum, just beyond the left edge. Bringing them in would take a much wider frame, and the ruled blocks would shrink with it.

The caption

The title, one line under it, the coordinates. On a plan where the streets tell the age of the ground, that line can tell how long you have known it: a year, a number on Marlborough Street, the name of a stop.

The sheet
Subject
Boston, United States
Palette
Schist and slate
Map style
Clean and Detailed
Layout
Bar
Typeface
Editorial
Framing
Zoom 11.6
Fade at the edges
0%
Format
Portrait
The palette of this poster

Schist and slate

Sixteen inks, in the configurator’s order. It is not in the catalogue, but you will find it in the palette library, filed under its material.

  • Background
  • Water
  • Greenery
  • Built-up areas
  • Roads
  • Buildings
  • Text
  • Motorways
  • Main roads
  • Secondary roads
  • Minor roads
  • Streets
  • Service roads
  • Paths
  • Railways
  • Borders
Compose with this paletteStart from it to make your own

Opens the colour workshop with these 16 inks in place: change one, keep the rest.

It will wait in your account, ready for any piece.

What the drawing tells

Three facts you can see on the plan

1858The bay was filled by train

Filling began in 1858. Every day, trains brought three thousand five hundred carloads of gravel from Needham, and the work ran around the clock for more than thirty years. Back Bay added four hundred and fifty acres to a city of seven hundred and eighty-three: the ground won from the water came to more than half the size of the town it was joined to.

The 1860sOblong blocks around a two-hundred-foot avenue

The architect Arthur Gilman laid out the new district as a series of oblong blocks, with Commonwealth Avenue, two hundred feet wide, as its central axis and a tree-lined mall down the middle, after the boulevards Paris had recently cut for Napoleon III. On the sheet it is the spine of the ruled strip. Come closer in the configurator and the mall appears, a thin green line between its two carriageways.

1879A tidal swamp, then seven miles of parks

The Back Bay Fens was a tidal swamp. Asked to solve its problems, Frederick Law Olmsted made it in 1879 into an informal park planted with marsh vegetation. The Muddy River and Olmsted Park followed in 1881, Franklin Park in 1885, Jamaica Park in 1892. The chain they belong to counts nine distinct parks, later called the Emerald Necklace, and spans seven miles from the historic centre: it is the green thread across this sheet.

Before ordering

The four questions people ask

Can I choose any place, any date?

Yes. The search covers the whole world, from a capital to a hamlet. For the Sky collection, any date works, past or future: the sky is calculated.

What sizes do you offer?

From 21 × 29.7 cm to 84.1 × 118.9 cm, that is A4 to A0, portrait or landscape depending on the material. Every size is shown with its price in the editor.

What materials do you offer?

Four, from the barest to the most dressed.

  • Matte fine art paperA 200 gsm art paper with a deep matte finish: the bare print, to frame as you please.
  • Wooden hangersThe print suspended between two wooden hangers, ready to hang, in the spirit of studio posters.
  • The classic frameThe print mounted under acrylic glass in a slim frame, assembled by hand, delivered ready to hang.
  • Framed canvasThe piece printed on canvas, stretched over a wooden stretcher bar and set in a frame: a gallery presence.
How long does it take?

Making depends on the edition: 1 to 3 working days for Fine Art paper and wooden hangers, 3 days for the poster and the mounted frame, 3 to 5 days for the framed canvas. Transit depends on the country:

Delivered toIn transitIn total
European Union5 to 7 working days6 to 12 working days
United Kingdom2 to 3 working days3 to 8 working days
United States4 to 6 working days5 to 11 working days
CanadaNational deliveryGiven at dispatch
AustraliaNational deliveryGiven at dispatch

These are standard delivery times and remain indicative. For a set date, order two to three weeks ahead.

Digital editions are available immediately: the file of your piece can be downloaded from your account as soon as you order, and an email lets you know the moment it is ready.

All the questions

Your Boston

Somewhere on this sheet there is a corner that belongs to you: the stretch of riverbank you ran, the North End street of a first flat, a bench in the Public Garden. Put it at the centre, and write its name underneath.

Compose my Boston poster