Putting Main Street, USA on the Map

Mapping Main Street

There are 10,466 Main Streets in the United States. There’s a Main Street in San Luis, Arizona that dead-ends right into the Mexican border. The Main Street in Melvindale, Michigan runs through a trailer park in the shadows of Ford’s River Rouge plant, once the largest factory in the world.

Mapping Main Street is a collaborative documentary media project from, amongst others, National Public Radio The project aims to create a map of the country through stories, photos and videos recorded on actual Main Streets.

The project team is traveling across the country visiting as many Main Streets as possible. Whilst visiting Main Street, USA the project are taking photos, shooting videos, and interviewing people. The project will be commissioning music out of recordings made on the streets and, during August, four radio stories will air on NPR’s Weekend Edition.

A website has also been created which contains a Google Map of all 10,466 Main Streets. The map includes a search engine to find the nearest Main Streets to any location. Clicking on any of the returned map markers from a search will load the Google Maps Street View of that Main Street.

To contribute to the project you can join the Flickr Mapping Main Street group and add your own photographs or videos taken on any Main Street.

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