Mayor Nutter Celebrates Debut of PhilaPlace
- By Michelle Ghadfa
- December 9, 2009
After a year-long collaboration with the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Night Kitchen Interactive has officially launched PhilaPlace – an interactive website illuminating the history and culture of Philadelphia’s unique neighborhoods.
An integral component of the website is an interactive map interface that Night Kitchen developed through the innovative use of Google Maps API. The map allows visitors to explore stories and historical records about specific locations by topic of interest, and view the sites in the context of a contemporary map as well as four historical map overlays provided by the Greater Philadelphia GeoHistory Network. Visitors can also view the Historical Society of Pennsylvania’s vast online collection, save their favorite stories in My PhilaPlace, map sites of interest through Google Maps, and contribute their own personal story.
To evoke a sense of community and personal storytelling, the 150 stories currently available on PhilaPlace are enriched with over a thousand historical and contemporary photos and a growing number of audio narratives and video interviews contributed by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, visitors, and partners. To assist the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in gathering stories from community organizations, Night Kitchen Interactive conducted an outreach campaign over the summer and contributed a total of 40 video interviews to PhilaPlace. You can view these interviews by selecting "Partners" from the map interface.
The site currently features two vibrant Philadelphia neighborhoods – Northern Liberties and South Philadelphia, with plans to eventually include more regions of the city. Night Kitchen Interactive’s integration of the website with CollectiveAccess – an open-source collections management system developed by Whirl-i-Gig – will support this growth and allow PhilaPlace to expand into more Philadelphia neighborhoods.
With today’s official launch celebration at City Hall with the Honorable Mayor Michael A. Nutter, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania invites local residents and community organizations to explore the website and add a story to PhilaPlace!
To receive updates on this project, sign up to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania’s newsletter or visit the PhilaPlace blog.
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