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NYC Permit Pulse Screenshot

Welcome to NYC Permit Pulse

NYC Permit Pulse is a live visualization of New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) permit activity, overlaid onto the stunning pixel-art isometric map created by @cannoneyed at isometric.nyc. Each dot on the map represents an active building permit — color-coded by type, with brightness indicating recency. Click any permit to see full filing details, or use the sidebar to filter by permit type, borough, and date range.

Key Features

Live Permit Data

Fetches permit data directly from NYC Open Data (DOB NOW), updated daily

Color-Coded Markers

18 distinct permit types from New Building to Solar, each with unique colors and icons

Interactive Filtering

Filter by permit type, borough, and date range (7 days or 30 days)

Coordinate Projection

Custom lat/lng to isometric pixel conversion with 8-meter accuracy

Neighborhood Labels

Zoom-level LOD: 5 boroughs → 40 major neighborhoods → 197 NTAs

Permit Details

Full permit drawer with DOB BIS, ZoLa, and Google Maps integration

Live Helicopters

Real-time helicopter overlay via ADS-B Exchange (for fun)

Deep Zoom Tiles

OpenSeadragon rendering with 123,904 × 100,864px isometric NYC map

Quickstart

Get up and running in 5 minutes

Installation

Clone and run the project locally

Data Sources

Learn about NYC Open Data integration

API Reference

Explore the permit data API

Data Sources

NYC Permit Pulse merges data from two DOB NOW datasets via NYC Open Data:
DatasetSocrata IDContents
DOB NOW: Build – Approved Permitsrbx6-tga4Work permits (GC, PL, ME, SOL, etc.)
DOB NOW: Build – Job Filingsw9ak-ipjdNew Building + Full Demolition filings
DOB NOW data lags approximately 2-5 days. The “7 Days” filter actually queries the past 7-9 days to account for this publishing delay.

Built With

Acknowledgements

  • @cannoneyed — Creator of isometric.nyc, the incredible pixel-art map that powers this visualization
  • NYC Department of Buildings / NYC Open Data — For making permit data publicly accessible

License

MIT — See LICENSE for details.

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