Crazy? Cool? Why a California man moved to RI to take over The Map Center

PAWTUCKET – The idea was like some kind of fantasy plucked from the pages of a book: a map store being given away for almost nothing to the person capable of winning over the owner.

It was as wild, tempting and aspirational as “Charlie and The Chocolate Factory.” It was a terrible, terrible idea. It was the kind of fantasy you have but don’t act on. It was something Andrew Middleton told himself he wouldn’t act on as he read The Providence Journal article saying Andrew Nosal was giving away The Map Center.

And so, after telling himself that no, he would not uproot his life in Oakland, California, to move across the country to sell maps, he started to compose his email to Nosal.

“How can you not write an email if there’s that kind of an offer in place?” Middleton asked. “I wrote down all the different reasons that this terrible idea seemed like a good idea.”

And Middleton half hoped that is where this story would end, where you take the brave step telling yourself that you are the kind of person who would jump – without ever having to leap.

“And then, three days later, (Nosal) sends me an email saying … I want you to run it,” Middleton said. “I had a long conversation with him, I was actually walking through the streets of San Fransico in the rain, which has a very romantic quality to it, and I asked him all these questions.”

Then, Middletown flew out to Rhode Island and met the other “finalists” to take over the store, of which he was the only one who made maps, as a GIS (Geographic Information System) analyst and cartographer. And then, when he emerged as the heir apparent to the business, he had to decide if he was the type of person who leaps.

“I had two good options. I liked where I lived, but also doing something crazy would be kind of cool. If both of those are equally good options, do the one that is the better story,” Middleton said. “This is the better story.”

A quick history of The Map Center

The Map Center, 545 Pawtucket Ave., has been a Rhode Island fixture since the 1950s. It was first owned by a husband-and-wife team, then very briefly when they retired by a man who quickly found himself in over his head, and then by Nosal, who took over in 1981 at age 27 when he realized corporate America wasn’t for him.

Nosal saw The Map Center through changes in venue, a fire in 2009, the rise of GPS, internet sales and personal health issues. He still comes in for lunch several days a week and is mentoring Middleton during the transition.

His mentee has an “irrational drive in the right direction,” he said on the podcast Very Expensive Maps.

What Middleton has planned for The Map Center

Middleton went to college at the University of New Hampshire for environmental sciences, which allowed him to combine his interests in nature, policy and sciences. There, he took one GIS class that turned out to be his most marketable skill upon graduation.

It turned him into “the GIS guy,” he said. He’s had jobs at places like Apple Maps and continues to work making maps for an emergency-management firm.

“I had a complicated relationship with it for a while, but you know, over time, I kind of leaned into it and I think the more I play around with it, and the art and philosophy of mapping, I was drawn in,” he said. “It was sort of a casual interest turned reluctant career turned passion.”

Middleton can really talk about maps. Pulling the drawers open at The Map Center is a delight of his, finding historical maps, scientific maps and quirky maps mixed in with the old road maps. He’s found a copy of the map that once hung on his bedroom wall, a vintage one of camping spots in The White Mountains he wants to frame, one printed on parachute silk to help soldiers navigate war, and one from 1946 India whose history fascinates him.

These are all a part of what The Map Center sells, but he’s also hoping to bring in a new generation of maps. Maps that go beyond the road maps that GPS has largely replaced (though road maps are available) or the historical maps (also available) but reflect the maps that he and his friends like.

“If it tells a story, if it has an interesting perspective, if it’s informative and tells us something new that you can look at for a little while, then that's something that I want to have in the store,” he said.

He’s started stocking maps and map books like that, and also has a list of maps that tell Rhode Island stories he’s hoping to make or commission someone to make.

He also has ideas about The Map Center as an educational place, having young students come in and learn how to look at the maps with a critical eye and having adults come in to learn how to make their own maps.

He heard a talk by the director of the Tomaquag Museum that incorporated historical maps, for example, and left thinking about what it would be like if the maps were drawn by Indigenous people instead of relying on “18th-century hand-drawn maps made by people who murdered people.”

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“I want this to be a valuable place that people will feel like is a valuable part of the community and is worth supporting,” he said.

Which, he admits, a lot of days feels a little overwhelming. There are so many ideas on his list to get to. And he has no illusion that running a specialty map store in the days where everyone already has access to more than an atlas worth of maps on their phone will be easy. But, he says, if we want there to be quirky, weird places, someone has to keep them alive.

“I have to constantly remind myself like it is enough to do one good thing a day,” he said. “And, there are a couple of days where I’ve done more than one.”

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: The Map Center in Pawtucket now run by California man after giveaway