The United Plates Of America
Liam Greenfield
Discover Chicago — Chicago Atlas
The United Plates Of America
For my final mapping project, the Chicago Atlas, I decided to walk around certain parts of Chicago and collect as many license plates I possibly could. Throughout my journey, I managed to collect 36 out of 50 plates (37 including Washington D.C.). The 37 plates that I collected were from the states of Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington Wisconsin, and Washington D.C. as the one plate that isn’t a U.S. state. I walked a total of 14 different streets. I found 7 plates on Fullerton, 4 plates on Clifton, 7 plates on Racine, 6 plates on Belden, 3 Plates on SouthPort, 2 plates on Sheffield, 1 plate on Webster, 1 plate on Armitage, 1 plate on Lincoln, 1 plate o Willow, 1 plate on Kingsbury, 1 plate on Dickens, 1 plate on Halsted, and 1 plate on Lakewood. Although I didn’t successfully reach my overall goal of collecting a plate for each and every U.S. state, I still give myself an immense amount of credit for the quantity of plates that I did happen to collect.
My main motive behind why I chose to collect license plates is because I have always had a lot of geography. My love for geography (especially U.S. geography) particularly derives from my huge passion for history. Being able to collect something that correlates to geography, such as license plates or quarters with each state on the tails end, allows me to express my true love and dedication for my country. I was also motivated to collect license plates because I wanted to be able to capture something that would often go unnoticed for most people. Let’s be honest, the majority of Americans couldn’t care less when it comes to spotting out of state license plates. Most would think this activity would be a complete waste of time without a practical use or purpose; but not me. For me, whenever my eyes gaze upon any out of state license plate, I instantly have thoughts to myself about who these people are and where they came from. To me, a license plate is more than a piece of metal slapped onto a car with a random sequence of letters and numbers and the state in which it is representing. I believe that license plates are a way to introduce people to one another while on the road, and to show a sense of pride for the state in which that person is entitled to. In other words, a license plate is the name tag of a car.
The purpose of my map is to clearly and effectively display the routes I treaded upon while collecting my plates and to show the exact location of where I found them. I spent multiple days hunting and searching for license plates, and I walked for countless hours along numerous amounts of streets within the neighborhood of Lincoln Park. I walked down a total of 14 streets with each one pertaining to its own quantity of plates.
The mood of my map, the United Plates of America (UPA), is informative and exploratory. It doesn’t have much color to it, other than the red markers for each license plate that I found. My goal was not to make it as colorful as I possibly could; but instead to inform my audience upon the specific locations in which I found the plates and how many I found. Through close analysis and observation of my map, I would like to think that whoever is utilizing my map will be able to use it to their own personal advantage should they choose to learn more about my journey or how to kick off their own.
My UPA map displays a time frame over a course of a couple of days. It only shows the locations of the plates from the moment in which I spotted them. This means that these plates plotted on the map are only a temporary marker since they are not guaranteed to remain there for any specific period of time. Of course the locations and coordinates of where I found the plates will continue to permanently remain, the plates will not.
I decided to define clear outer borders/boundaries for my UPA map. I plotted down my farthest borders for each of the four directions so that I would have a clearly defined area for which my map would encompass. Each border is represented by a street in which I didn’t travel any further upon during my exploration. I started with my farthest northern border which composed of West Diversey Parkway, stretching as far east to my eastern border of North Lake Shore Drive, to my western border of North Ashland Avenue. My eastern and western borders of Lake Shore Drive and Ashland avenue both intersected respectively with my southernmost border of the Illinois Route 64 highway.
The orientation of my map is clearly represented by streets that flow in all four major directions. I placed a simple compass on my map in order to assist with locating these distinct directions. I also included a simple yet effective key that defines the meaning of my map’s symbols and other visuals. I attempted to keep my map as simple as possible in order to avoid confusion, so the only two distinct visuals that are displayed are streets with their names and locations of plates, each with a red marker and the abbreviation of the appropriate state.
The streets that I walked upon are displayed upon my map. Each street is interconnected with one, hence creating the overall routes in which I took. The streets that I traveled upon during my exploration are all a representation of the charming and unique character of Lincoln Park. Each street had its own beauty and style, with license plates mostly of Illinois, but also with a handful of out of state plates as well. I found some streets to have more out of state plates than others, telling me where people were visiting from or who had just recently moved from another state to Illinois. Varsha Adusumilli stated that “Nobody can teach you how beautiful the road is or how enjoyable the walks are. You have to experience it for yourself.” I completely agree with this statement because I came to realize during my journey that I came across a huge array of different places and locations all around Lincoln Park, and the only way I was able to capture this sort of intense exploration was to physically walk around these areas for myself. The beauty and glamor of each street that I strolled down was unique and special from one to the next.
The main influences that made the strongest impact upon my journey was the weather, the walkability of the streets, and my intense levels of curiosity to explore my surroundings. I found most of the streets that I walked down to be very walkable and accessible to me because they were mostly all aligned with private residences and they all expressed an old and charming vibe. I also felt very safe when walking on my own along these streets and can connect this to Adusumilli’s remark that “The key to completing a long walk is to take the next step and the next.” I walked for miles upon miles and for hours on end just by myself, putting one foot in front of the other.
I also happened to notice that the majority of the places I explored were very old and historical. There were tons of old houses dating as far back as the Victorian Era, while others were from the 1920’s and 1930’s and consisted mostly of Chicago style bungalows.
I made some assumptions that the people who had cars from another state parked along these streets were most likely able to do so because they had the time and motives to travel that distance. And the farther the state, the more intrigued I became. People who drove from nearby Mid-Western or neighboring states such as Wisconsin and Indiana drove quite a ways to get to Illinois, but not nearly as far as the individuals who came all the way from the Northeast of the Midwest such as New Jersey or Washington state.
All in all, my license plate hunting experience was such an incredible moment for me. I was able to explore parts of Chicago that I had never been to before and I got a ton of exercise from the great distance that I covered. The United Plates of America is a representation of my love and passion for U.S. geography and history. May god bless these plates, and most of all, may he bless America.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SP26La1ciR8
