Hopper at the Theatre

This project investigates the cultural and theatrical landscape of Edward Hopper’s New York using linked open data (LOD) technologies. Leveraging the unparalleled collection of Hopper’s art and archival materials held by the Whitney Museum of American Art, Hopper at the Theatre contextualizes the artist’s personal and professional geographies towards the end of the interwar period circa 1925 to 1937. Part one of Hopper at the Theatre targets primary source data for semantic enrichment from event ticket stubs in the newly established Sanborn Hopper Archive. By reconciling and transforming this unique dataset with additional raw data from external information silos and linking the result to open knowledge bases, this project will deliver an easily accessible and dynamic endpoint for users to interactively discover and explore the material memory of Hopper’s New York City. Selected reflections of this dataset will be used to emphasize interesting patterns in order to draw out engaging and perhaps hidden narratives from the artist’s day-to-day. The preliminary deliverable is an interactive map built with Leaflet and Stamen Maps. Each icon on the Leaflet map marks a distinct theatre’s geographical point. Clicking on any marker opens a popup containing the following information: The theatre’s name The theatre’s address, including zip code The count of ticket stubs issued by the theatre and saved by Edward Hopper A list of shows attended by Edward Hopper at the theatre, including The show’s title The year Hopper attended the show The name of the show’s playwright, when available The playwright’s Wikidata ID, when available Primary source metadata has been generously provided by the Whitney Museum of American Art, along with access to their Collection Data Server/System (CDS) API. Additional data sources include: Carnegie Hall Archives Linked Data Cinema Treasures Google Maps Geocoding API Internet Broadway Database Internet Movie Database Wikidata API.