Networks of New York: An Illustrated Field Guide to Urban Internet Infrastructure

A pocket field guide to the physical internet, which Ingrid Burrington locates in the sidewalk markings, manhole covers and buildings of New York.

Burrington uses New York as her reference point and more than fifty color illustrations as her map. She decodes spray-painted sidewalk markings, explains the history behind cryptic manhole covers, and points out subway cameras and carrier hotels. Along the way she covers the NYPD's surveillance apparatus, twentieth-century telecommunication monopolies, high-frequency trading on Wall Street and the downtown building that houses both Google and the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force. Melville House published it in August 2016.

Burrington is a writer and artist based in Brooklyn whose work concerns data, internet infrastructure and the tech industry. She turned to network infrastructure in 2013, following the Snowden revelations. She is a founding member of Deep Lab, and her writing has appeared in The Atlantic and The Nation.