NEW YORK CITY has a reputation as a rough place; a town where you never know who is packing a pistol. A heat map by John Keefe at WNYC, the city's big public radio station, does a great job of showing where people are stopped and frisked the most, as well as where weapons are most commonly found.

The data reveal what one might expect: the north of Manhattan and the Bronx have both the most frisks and the most arms (chart below; website here). (Yes, yes, statistically-minded readers will relish the self-confirming correlation: by searching more, you find more.) Yet the data also show a few anomalies, such as areas of Brooklyn and Queens that have many stop-and-frisks but zero weapons. Likewise, the Bronx has places that are riddled with few frisks but are teeming with guns. 

However, what makes the heat map so effective is less the actual data and more the aesthetics. The color scheme dramatically brings forth the areas in a near 3D way. The black background is very effective, as well as the beige traces of infrastructure, roads and names of locations outside of the city. It is a beautiful way to show who's packing heat, and where the heat is on—all in a single heat map.