New York

SpotCrime

The city PR machine would have you believe NY's a pristine, crimeless wonderland -- but if that were true, this email would be called SpotDaisies. See NY's turpitude unfurled, with SpotCrime.

A Baltimore-based concern dedicated to cataloguing urban peccancy, Spot GMaps crime data, 90% of which comes from police sources, and 10% from questionable local news sources, e.g., blogs, and the New York Post. The grisly's visible from three to 24 hours after the crime's reported and filterable by date range, time of day, and type (robberies, shootings, etc), though you can select "all" to see mayhem of truly Ghostbusters2ian proportions. Incidents are marked with sometimes amusingly appropriate icons, including everything from targets (shooting), to flames (arson), to scampering man with moneybags (robbery); mouse over any to see brief info or click for more details on crimes of terror ("young man arrested for tossing a sandwich at a grocery clerk") and passion ("a group of thugs ripped off a man's pants").

Spot has a strong NY presence right now, but their goal is a national one -- so though NY has once again set the bar for the nation, soon we can expect a realistic crime drama called Missoula PD Blue.

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