Can't Find Your Way to Jury Duty? A New Map Can Help Updated August 3, 2011 9:15am

The map will have a closeup of the blocks around Foley Square, including the locations of courthouses and other public buildings. (Downtown Alliance)

CIVIC CENTER — In the 25 years Elizabeth Williams has worked in lower Manhattan's courts, she has given hundreds of people directions.

Williams has pointed confused jurors to courthouses that lack visible addresses, directed tourists toward Ground Zero and once even showed a man how to get to his Alcoholics Anonymous meeting at St. Andrew's Church.

"People are constantly asking for directions," said Williams, a Financial District resident and courtroom artist. "Even for New Yorkers, it's very confusing."

To help the wandering masses help themselves, Williams has been working for more than a year on a solution — the first comprehensive street map of the entire Civic Center to be posted in the area.

The map, slated to arrive later this month, will take up the length of a city block, and will hang as a series of banners ringing the construction site outside 26 Federal Plaza. It was designed by Poulin + Morris Inc.

It will be more thorough than some other posted street maps in the area, most of which only show a portion of the area around the Civic Center — for example, only showing the area south of Reade Street and not including the northern area near the courts.

The map, which will be installed by the Downtown Alliance, will focus on the confusing blocks around Foley Square and will highlight 16 courthouses and public buildings, from New York County Family Court to the notoriously hard-to-find federal courthouse at 500 Pearl St. 

"The idea is to orient the person," said Connie Chung, planning analyst for the Downtown Alliance. 

"With all the construction going on, it can be difficult to navigate."

The location at 26 Federal Plaza, near Worth and Lafayette streets, is only temporary — the map will come down when the construction finishes in the fall of 2012 — so Williams is working with Community Board 1 on finding a place for a permanent map and money to install it.

It's more difficult to get a permanent map because it would have to go through the city's public design process.

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By Julie Shapiro, DNAinfo.com

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