You can fill in some of the rest.  The bubble burst.  9/11.  New York turned into a very hard place to be.  By the end of 2001, the repayment of business school debt no longer looked like a slam dunk.

But, Ian had an idea, and he wasn’t ready to give up on New York.

Ian has had a longstanding interest in design.  From a user’s perspective, he noticed the inadequacy of standard urban tourist maps.  Even if you restrict your map of Manhattan to that portion of the island below Central Park, the amount of relevant information related to streets, neighborhoods, subways, and landmarks will quickly overwhelm a conveniently sized map.

So, Ian set out to make a better map – one that effectively allows for layered information that can be viewed selectively.  Ian has stuck with his vision over the last 18 months, and he has just released his first edition of Dyanamap for tourists: Manhattan, which is available at www.urbanmapping.com or by phone at 866.DYNAMAP for $17.95.  (You can’t have my copy, so you’ll have to buy your own.)

I used to spend a lot of time in New York.  The place has an energy that can’t be contained.  Its resilience is exemplified by the kind of tenacity Ian has shown.  He graduated with the expectation that he would inherit the earth – along with every other MBA in the country.  Instead, he found unemployment.  But, he adjusted to the new reality and was able to shake himself loose from the discredited theories of the “new economy.”  Ian looked for a way to solve real peoples’ problems – even those as mundane as tourists’ and out-of-town businesspeoples’ desire to get around the city with just a little less hassle.

How can New York not rebound?