Mapping Main Street
 
The goal is to document every street named Main in the country. This means somebody going to each of these over 10,466 places, snapping a photo, recording a video or writing a brief story. An absurd idea for a small group of people, but an exciting challenge for a nation of millions.

Share Your Story

If you have a great story about a Main Street, please send us an email at stories@mappingmainstreet.org.

Contribute Photographs

Anyone can contribute to this project. The only requirement is that all photos, videos and audio must be recorded on a street named Main. Return to the map to find streets named Main near where you live or where you are traveling.

10 Things on Main Street
MISSION: Answer the following questions through photographs.
  1. Where is the “Main Street” street sign?
  2. What view would you put on a postcard?
  3. What is the most colorful thing you see?
  4. Is there food on Main Street?
  5. What people are here besides you?
  6. Are there any signs of nature on this Main Street?
  7. Where is a good place to stand? Take a picture looking up and take a picture looking down.
  8. What words stick out at you?
  9. What objects do you notice on Main Street? Fire hydrants? Mailboxes? Lampposts?
  10. What is for sale?

We are using Flickr to gather all photographs for the project. Follow these simple instructions to get started…

  1. If you don’t have one already, create a new account at Flickr (it’s quick and free)
  2. Join the Mapping Main Street group
  3. Upload your photographs of a specific Main Street
  4. Tag all your photos with the following words:
    • mappingmainstreet
    • name of place where you took the photo (e.g. chattanooga)
    • abbreviation of state where you took the photo (e.g. tn)
    • any words you feel describe the image (e.g. people, ruin, sign, etc.)
  5. Submit your photo to the mappingmainstreet group

Contribute Videos

We are using Vimeo to gather all videos for the project. These are some simple instructions to get started…

  1. If you don’t have one already, create a new account at Vimeo (it’s quick and free)
  2. Join the Mapping Main Street group
  3. Upload your videos of a specific Main Street
  4. Tag all your videos with the following words:
    • mappingmainstreet
    • name of place where you took the video (e.g. chattanooga)
    • abbreviation of state where you took the video (e.g. tn)
    • any words you feel describe the video (e.g. people, ruin, sign, etc.)

Contribute Audio Stories

We’ve decided to also use Vimeo as the means for people to upload audio stories. What this means is that you can make a very simple video (even just one image) and have the audio play out the whole time underneath it.

You can see this is what we’ve done with a few of the songs for the project. This ensures that audio playback blends into the site smoothly within the slideshows and since the media is then on Vimeo, it’s easy to share with others and we can also feature it on our blog.

Other Ideas for Collaboration?

We’d love to hear them! Please send us an email.

Herkimer, NY - 112 N Main Marine City, MI Port Huron, MI Buffalo, NY Main Place