Brooklyn, New York 3D Wood Map | Laser-Cut Birch Depth Chart
How the Water Becomes Wood
A chart is a stack of flat sheets until the water's real soundings tell it what shape to take.
- SurveyReal bathymetric sounding data sets every contour line before a single cut is made.
- CutEach depth band is laser-cut from its own sheet of Baltic birch, up to nine layers deep.
- StainWater layers are stained by hand, reading darker the deeper the water runs.
- StackThe sheets are registered and stacked in sequence, and the bed's true shape rises out of the wood.
- EtchDepths and place names are burned into the grain itself, never printed on it.
- FrameA solid Baltic birch frame and acrylic glass finish the piece, ready to hang.
Brooklyn and its waterfront in stacked Baltic birch, 24.5 by 31 inches: the borough that faces three different waters, harbor, strait, and open Atlantic, with every depth contour laser-cut as its own layer.
No borough has a coastline like this. The East River edge runs from the bridge anchorage at Dumbo past the Navy Yard toward Newtown Creek; the harbor side wraps Red Hook's piers and the anchorage where the great ships wait; and the ocean side stretches Coney Island and Brighton Beach along the Atlantic, with the parachute jump standing over the boardwalk like a retired lighthouse. At the Narrows, the Verrazzano crosses to Staten Island on what was the longest suspension span in the world when it opened in 1964. On the chart, all three waters get their true depths, from the dredged anchorages to the shallow sweep off the beaches.
Contours are laser-cut sheet by sheet, stacked by hand, engraved, and finished behind acrylic glass in a solid Baltic birch frame.
Brooklyn's waterfront generation knows every pier by what it used to be and what it is becoming. Both versions hang together here.
The engraving runs from Greenpoint down the East River shore, around Red Hook and the Narrows, to Coney Island and the Rockaway Inlet approaches. Companions: Manhattan and Staten Island.
- 24.5 × 31 in
- Solid Baltic birch frame
- Acrylic glass front, ready to hang
- Free next-business-day shipping on orders placed by 2 PM EST
- 14-day returns
Live from the water