Google Maps of the Stars

There’s something new and cool on Google Maps: a “featured map” by various famous personalities about town. Though there is a corporate sponsor lurking behind the effort (nycgo.com), it’s still a fascinating way to see how the other half lives.

From bigwigs like Mayor Bloomberg and Diane von Furstenberg to industry players like Fern Mallis of IMG, a few key New Yorkers let you in on their favorite places in the city. While some are lame—can anyone imagine Bloomberg saying “The lights! The crowds! The bustle!” when recommending Times Square?—many of the suggestions sound like they’ve been written by the personalities themselves. Moby says of Billy’s Antiques on Houston: “you can find sex toys from the 1920′s and shrunken heads and fetal pigs in jars and cocktail shakers and world war 2 binoculars and books on taxidermy and etc. when billy’s closes i leave the lower east side.”

Nightlife impresario Scott Harrison not only tells you random stuff like where the club kids go for an Italian dinner (Pepe Giallo on 10th Aveneue—“cool garden, cheap”) but advises you to “ask for Thomas at the door of the lounge” at Macao Trading Co. and “tell Robert I sent you” at Lure Fishbar. Thanks, Scott—we just may do that.

Get clicking—it’s pretty addictive. And if you’re looking for maps of all the restaurants and bars covered in Gastro Chic, you can find them here:

View Gastro Chic Restaurants and Bars in a larger map