City of Women Map Renames NYC Subway Stations After Famous Women

Cartography by Molly Roy, from “Nonstop Metropolis,” by Rebecca Solnit and Joshua Jelly-Schapiro. Subway Route Symbols ® Metropolitan Transportation Authority

You probably won’t recognize the names on the map above as subway stops in New York City, but they should sound familiar. The City of Women Map renames subway stops, which are largely named after famous men like Astor, Rockefeller, Bleeker, and Washington, for important female figures from the city’s history. Created by Rebecca Solnit and Joshua Jelly-Schapiro with cartography from Molly Roy, a new updated version of the map will be revealed at the New York Transit Museum this month.

The City of Women Map has adapted and grown alongside the real New York City subway system. Since the creation of the City of Women Map, the extension of the 7 line to Hudson Yards and the opening of the first phase of the Second Avenue Subway were completed. The soon to be revealed City of Women Map 2.0 will feature more than 80 new names added to represent each of the subway’s 424 stations. The map marks sites where famous women like Billie Jean King, Pat Benatar, Nora Ephron, and Willa Cather “lived, worked, competed, went to school, danced, painted, wrote, rebelled, organized, philosophized, taught, and made names for themselves,” says co-creator Rebecca Solnit.

Closeup of Cartography by Molly Roy, from “Nonstop Metropolis,” by Rebecca Solnit and Joshua Jelly-Schapiro. Subway Route Symbols ® Metropolitan Transportation Authority

The map challenges the status quo of our transportation landscape, creating a city where women’s unsung accomplishments are finally heard and given the credit they’ve earned. The City of Women Map is currently featured inside the New York Transit Museum’s Navigating New York Exhibit. You can also find it in Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City Atlas.

The updated City of Women 2.0 map will be revealed by co-creators Joshua Jelly-Schapiro and Julie Scelfo at a conversation at the Transit Museum on Thursday, September 19th. If you are an Untapped Cities Insider, you can get tickets for just $5 using the code found in the Untapped Cities Facebook group and the upcoming Sunday Insider newsletter. Tickets to the unveiling event, which are $15 for the general public, can be purchased here!

Navigating New York Exhibit, Photograph by Filip Wolack, Courtesy of the New York Transit Museum

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