New York City streets function as a persistent site of traffic violence, a reality Brooklyn artist Michael Freedman is now highlighting through an application called Crashscape.
By aiming a smartphone at local intersections, users can view 30-foot digital cubes that represent every crash recorded at that location since 2022.
The app renders these virtual stacks of cubes, which Freedman designed to look like skyscrapers, to physically obstruct the view of the intersections. The project aims to force public engagement with the scale of city traffic accidents, which often go unnoticed by the average resident.
“I really wanted the cubes with the paintings around them to actually physically ‘block’ the intersections, so you could see these cubes and see the cars and trucks driving through the memorial,” Freedman said. The digital project accompanies an exhibition of his oil paintings at the Littlefield performance space in Gowanus.
Did You Know? The city’s first permanent memorial to traffic victims was not established until 2022, despite decades of recorded injuries and fatalities on New York City roadways.
NYPD data reveals the extent of the issue, reporting that 176 people have been killed and 43,239 injured in traffic incidents through Nov. 8 of this year. This equates to one injury occurring every six hours.
Historical trends have contributed to the relative invisibility of these events. A century ago, automobile manufacturers influenced a narrative shift that blamed pedestrians—labeled as “jaywalkers”—and encouraged the public to view traffic deaths as private family matters rather than systemic concerns.
Expert Insight: The transition of road violence from a front-page public health crisis to a private, isolated grief has effectively reduced the social pressure necessary to mandate infrastructure changes. By using augmented reality to re-insert these crashes into the physical landscape, Freedman’s work attempts to reclaim the public attention that was intentionally diverted over the last century.
While city officials have implemented various safety programs, including the 2014 Vision Zero plan and expansions to bike and bus networks, fatality numbers remain high. Last year, 210 people were killed in city traffic crashes.
The upcoming World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims on Sunday will feature a demonstration of the Crashscape app. The event includes a walk to the site of a ghost bike memorial for Victor Hidalgo, a victim of a collision involving an FDNY vehicle.
The app uses recorded traffic data to render a 30-foot cube for every crash that has occurred at a specific intersection since 2022. The volume of cubes at any given location corresponds directly to the frequency of reported accidents.
The exhibition, titled “The Distance From Here,” features the app alongside four oil paintings that detail specific fatal crashes. It serves as a focal point for the World Day of Remembrance to raise awareness about the frequency of road violence.
The titles of the paintings, such as “258 Feet from Here,” explicitly measure the distance between the crash site and the exhibition space. This naming convention is intended to illustrate that these fatal incidents occur in close proximity to daily life.
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