A Graphical Apology

Kindly reviewing this MIT material (in 2019), Cyndi observed that something along the lines of a campus map would make the tourism of the next few pages more approachable to the reader unfamiliar with those precincts. She’s right, and so I went looking for some such image to insert.

Had I preserved (or could I now locate) any of several handouts from Rush Week, or even from admissions correspondence, they would surely have included something suitable. But I hadn’t. And what I have kept (Technique yearbooks, for example) likewise hasn’t. Aerial photographs from 1919 abound, but they don’t much resemble the MIT of my freshman year. Nor do current campus maps: The ’Tute has grown and elaborated itself, over the past half century.

Please forgive me that the best I seem able to do is a(n) URL, which will point your computer’s browser to a really-splendid interactive vol d’oiseau map, zoomable in and out to include each building or any desired piece of New England or the world, centered on MIT. Each item visible therein comes complete with a link to the kind of detail that the Internet has trained us to expect.

The URL: HTTPS://WHEREIS.MIT.EDU

But, I hear you cry, I could zoom that wonderful map to include the appropriate segment, take a screenshot, and edit that into a simple JPG suitable for insertion. A tempting expedient, to be sure. Until you check out the tiny link labeled “Terms of Use” at the lower right corner of the screen display. They refer you to four (count ’em, 4) turgid legal documents:

the Google Terms of Service (the "Universal Terms");
the Google Maps/Google Earth Additional Terms of Service (the "Maps/Earth Additional Terms");
the Google Maps/Google Earth Legal Notices (the "Legal Notices"); and
the Google Privacy Policy (the "Privacy Policy").

…which I don’t expect to live long enough to peruse, much less to comprehend. Am I forgiven?

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