PAWTUCKET — Andrew Middleton once had a boss who called him a “map philosopher.” He doesn’t think it was intended as a compliment.
But as the new owner of Pawtucket’s Map Center, that mindset could be the key to saving an old-fashioned map store from obsolescence. Even though so much of our world has moved online, Middleton said saving a map store doesn’t require a digital overhaul. Instead, Middleton sees maps as tools for connecting with our own humanity.
“I think that I have something much more interesting to offer, which is … the map as art, as culture, as identity, as history,” Middleton said on a recent afternoon in the sun-drenched mill space that houses the shop. “Navigation is such a small part of what maps do.”
Through maps, Middleton said, we can think about the places that made us who we are.
“The store is selling stories, primarily,” Middleton said. “And the reason that they can still be current is because they still make people feel things. As long as it still makes you feel a thing, a map is up to date.”
That mentality is one reason Middleton won the business from its previous owner of more than 40 years, Andrew Nosal. After Nosal attempted — and failed — to sell the business, he opened up a nationwide contest to find its next proprietor.
Middleton, a GIS (geographic information system) veteran of Apple and Amtrak, believes he is the only mapmaker to apply among a global pool of more than 100, and is the only one to hold that expertise in the store’s four-owner history. He moved across the country from California, and the store reopened in October 2023.
Since then, Middleton has enacted what he calls a philosophical shift in the store’s operation, revamping the book selection and curating a brainy and eccentric stock of map-based art and supplies.
Recent examples include student Yimiao Wang’s RISD Cry project, which locates where students go to cry on campus. Writer Rebeca Solnit’s Infinite City project maps are in the collection, including a map that replaces New York subway stops with the names of women who lived near them. Middleton collaborated with the Decolonial Atlas project to produce tangible copies of Turtle Island, North America reoriented with place names that reflect accurate Indigenous titles. (One entry is Middleton’s own, a scuba diving map of Monterey, Calif., which he said sells better on the West Coast.)
Online sales account for about 20 percent of his business, he said. But the rest happens in person. There is a plush couch, library, and children’s corner.
The old tag line was “maps that help you.” And helpful maps still abound: Middleton physically condensed the travel and trail maps by about 80 percent (in space, though not number) In a cozy corner, an illustrated poster of New Hampshire’s 4,000-foot peaks adorns a shelf of White Mountain trail guides and other wilderness resources.
But there are more efficient ways of finding the capital of Ohio, said Middleton, and it’s pointless to sell information that’s available for free online.
“Why would I compete with the entire internet when I am one of the very, very, very few people who do what I do and have a physical place that you can go?” he said.
Middleton sees himself as a sort of sommelier of maps. He said anyone in the state could come in and he could probably find a map of their hometown. To do so quickly invokes the daydreamy experience of returning to a place through imagination: One sees the first street they lived on, school, and other landmarks of memory. That’s one type of story.
Another map on display told a story of redlining, race-based property ownership exclusion in 1930s Providence. A fully illustrated relief map at first suggests a tree-dappled cityscape, but upon further inspection reveals how much real estate is dedicated to car-centric design choices such as parking lots. Cities are a collection of choices, said Middleton, and maps tell those stories.
Middleton has been calibrating his moral compass.
“The lever that I have is small, but I’m thinking about the most beneficial ways I can pull it,” he wrote recently on Bluesky.
His mission caught the internet’s attention. First, Middleton’s collaboration with the Decolonial Atlas project gained traction when he posted about it. Subsequent posts, including a YouTube introduction, reached well beyond the smallest state.
The warm response he received surprised him — the internet can be a dark and awful place, he said.
“You’re not supposed to read the comments,” he said. “I read every comment. Every one was lovely.”
But Middleton isn’t striving to become a cartographic influencer, although he would love to host school groups and give talks. He said he’s just speaking to a common, if low-profile interest. Maps affect us all. Recently, customers have asked if he will display maps referring to the “Gulf of America,” as President Trump recently declared the Gulf of Mexico be renamed via executive order.
Much of geography, said Middleton, simply amounts to an agreement: What is our country, what is occupied territory, and the degree to which other countries recognize such claims. Mexico and other international countries do not recognize the name change, as the Associated Press noted in its recent guidance. (Middleton called the change “profoundly stupid,” and cartographically misguided due to the location of relevant territorial waters.)
“All maps are wrong,” said Middleton, who believes all maps represent the mapmaker’s perspective, “but some are useful.”
That ambiguity can frustrate some, he said, when in search of a single authoritative answer. Maps pretend to be objective, but they are not.
“When we look at a map, we have to think about why it was made, who it was made for, for what purpose? How were they making money?” said Middleton. “A lot of maps are made by insurance companies, empires, militaries, [and] advertising executives.”
He peeled out a map of Narragansett Bay made by the British Navy in 1777 for the king of England. Landforms appear as lumpy afterthoughts, but water depth and military fortifications are clearly noted, marking the priority information. The mapmaker was likely offering a coy suggestion to invade.
Maps can be sneaky, persuasive, and believable, said Middleton. They can come in many forms: some songs and sculptures can be maps. And to reject any singular mapmaking authority is liberation.
“It means that your map is as interesting as mine, and I now have the great pleasure of stocking maps that are made by nonprofessionals,” he said. He is eager for more artist- and community-driven collaboration.
“There is a difference between mapping and being mapped,” he said.
If Middleton has his way, the shelves and files of the Map Center contain pages yet to be charted.
The Map Center is located at 545 Pawtucket Ave., Pawtucket, R.I., and is open Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.