Mapping Chicago Music Circa 2000

27 Dec 2013

The University of Chicago’s Jazz Collection in the Special Collection has an awesome archieve, that is, the Dan Grzeca collection between 1997 and 2006. I stumbled across this collection while doing some research for a course, and noticed how awesome the posters are. Grzeca is a poster artist who did posters for shows and bands across the country, but mostly Chicago through today. They look awesome. I took some photos. Click on one the images to get a fancy lightbox.

Now, what does a data nerd do with this? Well, each concert poster has a venue, and each venue represents where the Chicago music scene was at the time. So, using fusion tables, I was able to build this map.

The map shows how Wicker Park and eventually Logan Square, became the heart of the music scene, while venues downtown still remained popular. It includes both locations of the Empty Bottle, a popular venue. Had I been smarter and collected frequency when I was doing this, I woulda been able to build a heatmap.

Anyways, just a little proof of concept to show that there is data everywhere you look.

Citation: Grzeca, Dan. Collection, Box: 1, Folder: 1/2, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library Finding Aid