Influencer & outreach list for TimeWalk — the open-source, nonprofit historical
city recreation platform (UE 5.8; walkable 1609/1664/1776 Manhattan; historian-curated;
web pixel-streaming demos; PostGIS/QGIS geo pipeline; AI NPCs incl. Hamilton).
32 contacts in 3 tiers, web-verified. Audience figures approximate
— re-verify before quoting publicly.
Tier 1
Best fit AND realistically reachable
(10 contacts)
1.Milan Janosov
Geospatial data science (requested assessment)
Platforms / audienceSubstack “Milan's Data Science Insights” (~6.4k subs, Aug 2026), LinkedIn (very active daily poster), “The New Science of Maps” learning platform (launched Jul 2026)
CoversGeospatial data science, network science, urban analytics, map-based storytelling
Why they'd careTimeWalk's PostGIS/QGIS → UE pipeline is literally his subject matter; he regularly features other people's geospatial projects in his roundups
NotesReach assessment: mid-tier raw numbers but a high-conversion professional audience (GIS practitioners, data scientists, urban researchers). His LinkedIn engagement punches far above his Substack count. Best treated as a door into the geo-data-science community rather than mass reach — exactly the community that could contribute to an open-source geo pipeline.
Pitch angle“How we turned historical maps into a walkable 1609 Manhattan with QGIS + PostGIS + UE5” — a technical-pipeline guest post/feature.
2.Eric Sanderson
Welikia / Mannahatta Project (NY Botanical Garden)
Platforms / audienceInstitutional (NYBG), books, press; Welikia Map Explorer relaunched Earth Day 2025; Welikia Atlas and Gazetteer book slated 2026
CoversTHE authority on 1609 Manhattan's landscape ecology; his Mannahatta data is the canonical 1609 reference
Why they'd careTimeWalk's 1609 era is arguably the walkable version of his life's work; natural collaboration/endorsement, and he's a press magnet (Fast Company covered the 2025 map relaunch)
Pitch angle“Walk through the Mannahatta you mapped — we built it in Unreal Engine, and we'd love your eyes on the ecology.”
3.The Bowery Boys
Greg Young & Tom Meyers
Platforms / audiencePodcast (est. 10k–100k monthly listeners; 470+ episodes since 2007), blog, active socials
CoversAll of NYC history, warmly and accessibly; frequently cover new NYC-history media/projects
Why they'd careA walkable New Amsterdam/Revolutionary Manhattan is tailor-made episode material; they collaborate readily (e.g., Gilded Gentleman network)
Pitch angle“Take a walking tour of 1664 New Amsterdam without leaving your browser — episode + demo walkthrough.”
4.Keith Taillon
@keithyorkcity
Platforms / audienceInstagram ~55k+ (Apr 2025), Substack, author of Walking New York (2025), press-friendly (New Yorker, Times of London)
CoversManhattan history block-by-block, walking-tour format
Why they'd careHis whole brand is walking Manhattan's history — TimeWalk is that, time-shifted; indie-friendly and responsive
Pitch angle“Your walking tours, but in 1776 — guest-curate a route in TimeWalk.”
5.MapScaping Podcast
Daniel O'Donohue
Platforms / audiencePodcast, 260+ episodes, ~1.4M total downloads; active through Dec 2025/Jan 2026
CoversGeospatial tech interviews, heavy on open-source and indie builders
Why they'd careRegularly platforms exactly this kind of unusual geospatial application; very approachable for guests
Pitch angle“From USGS DEMs and georeferenced 17th-century maps to a streamable UE5 city — the TimeWalk pipeline episode.”
6.Geomob
Ed Freyfogle — podcast + event series
Platforms / audienceGeomob podcast (300+ episodes, active 2025–26), Geomob live events (London/Berlin/etc.), newsletter
CoversInteresting uses of geo — explicitly celebrates odd/indie/open geospatial projects
Why they'd careGeomob's founding ethos is “interesting geo projects, commercial or not”; nonprofit open-source historical geo is squarely in-scope
Pitch anglePodcast episode + a Geomob lightning talk slot (“time travel as a geospatial problem”).
7.Matt Forrest
Platforms / audienceLinkedIn ~84k+ followers (mid-2026), YouTube, forrest.nyc blog/newsletter
Covers“Modern GIS” — spatial SQL, cloud-native geo, open tooling; NYC-based
Why they'd careOpen-source PostGIS-driven project in his own city; he actively spotlights community projects (recently profiled Qiusheng Wu)
Pitch angle“Spatial SQL time machine: how PostGIS drives a walkable historical Manhattan” — LinkedIn feature or video collab; offer an in-person demo in NYC.
8.Qiusheng Wu
Platforms / audienceYouTube ~30k+ (2024), GitHub (geemap/leafmap creator), academia (UT Knoxville)
CoversOpen-source geospatial Python, GeoAI, cloud GIS education
Why they'd careDeeply committed to open-source geospatial; TimeWalk's open pipeline + AI NPCs bridge GeoAI and his teaching mission
Pitch angle“An open-source geospatial stack you can walk around inside” — tutorial/collab on the data pipeline.
9.IT'S HISTORY
Ryan Socash
Platforms / audienceYouTube ~885k subscribers
CoversUrban history and decay, with multiple deep NYC episodes (Seneca Village, Singer Tower, secret tunnels)
Why they'd careChannel thrives on “the city beneath the city” — TimeWalk gives him b-roll no one else has: fully rendered vanished Manhattans
Pitch angle“Film your next NYC episode inside 1664 New Amsterdam — free open-source footage source.”
10.Untapped New York
Founder Michelle Young + editorial team
Platforms / audienceWeb (claims 7M+ readers), newsletter ~58k subs, tours (15k+ visitors/yr), active socials
CoversHidden/lost NYC, history novelties, exactly this kind of story
Why they'd care“Walk Manhattan in 1609 from your browser” is an archetypal Untapped headline; they cover digital-history projects regularly
Pitch angleExclusive first-look article + embed of the pixel-streaming demo.
Tier 2
Strong fit
(15 contacts)
11.Tommy Silk
Landmarks of New York (@landmarksofny)
Platforms / audienceInstagram ~237k (Nov 2025)
CoversEvery NYC landmark, photographed and explained
Why they'd careThen-vs-now is his engagement engine; TimeWalk renders the “then” photorealistically
Pitch angleThen/now reels: his landmark photos side-by-side with the same GPS spot in 1776 TimeWalk.
12.Esther Crain
Ephemeral New York
Platforms / audienceLong-running blog (active 2025), books (The Gilded Age in New York), podcast guest circuit
CoversVanished NYC, old photographs and buildings
Why they'd careHer beat is the city that no longer exists; TimeWalk resurrects it
Pitch angle“The ephemeral city, un-ephemeraled” — blog feature with renders of streets she's written about.
13.Kevin Walsh
Forgotten NY
Platforms / audienceWebsite (active Aug 2026; ~4–5k daily visits), books, tours
CoversHistorical remnants and street-level artifacts of old NYC
Why they'd care25+ years documenting traces of old New York; TimeWalk shows the whole thing intact
Pitch angle“The streets Forgotten NY documents, before they were forgotten — walkable.”
14.Carl Raymond
The Gilded Gentleman podcast
Platforms / audiencePodcast (Bowery Boys network, active through Dec 2025)
CoversGilded Age / social & culinary history of NYC
Why they'd careEra mismatch today (he's 1870–1910) but TimeWalk's roadmap of future eras makes him a natural early ally; network effect with Bowery Boys
Pitch angle“When we build Gilded Age Manhattan, we want you as a curator — here's 1776 as proof.”
15.Liz Covart
Ben Franklin's World
Platforms / audiencePodcast, 11M+ lifetime downloads (~160k/mo as of 2023); produced with the Omohundro Institute
CoversEarly American history via historian interviews; actively programming Rev-250 content
Why they'd careHistorian-curated public history is her exact standard; 1776 Manhattan + AI Hamilton during the 250th is irresistible episode material — and she'll interrogate the scholarship, which TimeWalk wants
Pitch angle“Can historians make a video-game city rigorous? The TimeWalk curation model” — episode with a TimeWalk historian.
16.Bob Whitaker
History Respawned
Platforms / audiencePodcast + YouTube (active; historians analyzing historical video games)
CoversAcademic historians reviewing games like Assassin's Creed and Red Dead
Why they'd careAn open-source, historian-curated alternative to AC-style recreations — plus the AI-NPC-accuracy debate is a perfect episode topic
Pitch angle“What happens when historians control the game engine? Play-through + critique of TimeWalk.”
17.Danila Loginov
History in 3D
Platforms / audienceYouTube ~110k (Silver Award Dec 2025), relivehistoryin3d.com
CoversMeticulous 3D reconstructions of Ancient Rome, virtual tours
Why they'd carePeer project in a different era/city — natural mutual promotion and technique exchange (also consider peer channel Ancient Athens 3D)
Pitch angle“Rome ↔ Manhattan: cross-promo + pipeline exchange between historical reconstruction teams.”
18.Keir Clarke
Maps Mania
Platforms / audienceBlog (20 years running, active through Dec 2025; celebrated 20th anniversary Apr 2025)
CoversDaily posts on interactive maps and map-based web projects
Why they'd careHe posts practically every good interactive-map project on the internet; a browser-streamed historical Manhattan is a near-certain post
Pitch angleSimple email with the demo link — Maps Mania coverage is high-probability, low-effort.
19.John Nelson
Adventures in Mapping (Esri)
Platforms / audienceEsri blog, YouTube tutorials, LinkedIn/social (audience size unverified but widely followed in cartography)
CoversBeautiful cartography, historical map styles (he literally makes “vintage map” tutorials)
Why they'd careGeoreferenced 17th–18th-century maps driving a 3D world is cartography-nerd catnip
Pitch angle“From Castello Plan to game engine: the cartographic sources behind TimeWalk.”
20.Ruben Hanssen
The Aesthetic City
Platforms / audienceYouTube ~220k (Aug 2026), podcast, newsletter
CoversTraditional architecture and urbanism, why historical cities feel good
Why they'd careTimeWalk lets his audience experience pre-modern urbanism firsthand — evidence for his whole thesis
Pitch angle“Walk a human-scale city from 1776 — what we lost, rendered.”
21.Dave Amos
City Beautiful
Platforms / audienceYouTube ~700k (2024), Cal Poly planning faculty
CoversUrban planning explainers, history of city form
Why they'd careManhattan's street-grid evolution (pre-grid 1609/1664/1776 vs. 1811 plan) visualized in-engine is a ready-made video
Pitch angle“Manhattan before the grid — filmed inside a historically accurate 3D recreation.”
22.Manuel Bravo
Platforms / audienceYouTube ~702k (Aug 2026)
CoversArchitecture and urban history explainers (Rome, Venice, city deep-dives)
Why they'd careHis format = city explained via visuals; TimeWalk offers unique footage of vanished Dutch/colonial architecture
Pitch angle“New Amsterdam Explained — with in-engine footage no archive can provide.”
23.80 Level
80.lv
Platforms / audienceLeading game-art/UE outlet (10th anniversary 2025); site + large social presence; runs UE cloud-streaming showcases
CoversUE project breakdowns and indie dev interviews — publishes them near-daily
Why they'd careNonprofit UE 5.8 city recreation with a novel geo pipeline is a standout breakdown; they actively solicit indie submissions
Pitch angleTechnical art breakdown: “Rebuilding three centuries of Manhattan in UE 5.8.”
24.Simon Kuestenmacher
Platforms / audience~600k followers across platforms (X/LinkedIn especially); demographer, top-10 dataviz influencer lists
CoversShares striking maps and demographic visuals daily — much of it other people's work
Why they'd careA gorgeous 1609-vs-today Manhattan comparison map/render is exactly what he amplifies
Pitch angleSend one stunning shareable image (1609/1776/2026 same-viewpoint triptych) — engineered for a repost.
25.Nathan Yau
FlowingData
Platforms / audienceflowingdata.com (active 2025–26, member-supported), The Process newsletter
CoversBest-in-class data visualization curation
Why they'd careHistorical-GIS-to-3D as a data-visualization artifact; he curates standout geo projects yearly
Pitch angleSubmit the project page framed as “data visualization you can walk through.”
Tier 3
Long shots / mega-influencers
(7 contacts)
26.Townsends
Jon Townsend
Platforms / audienceYouTube ~2.9–3M (Jan 2026)
Covers18th-century everyday life, cooking, building; beloved, collaboration-friendly
Why they'd care1776 Manhattan is their century; they've embraced 3D models in videos before
Pitch angle“Cook an 18th-century meal, then walk the 1776 city it was cooked in.”
27.pwnisher
Clinton Jones
Platforms / audienceYouTube ~1.4M; runs massive community 3D render challenges
Covers3D artistry, community challenges, environment renders
Why they'd careA “historical Manhattan” community challenge using open TimeWalk assets could be a fit — but he's swamped
Pitch angleOffer TimeWalk's open assets/environments as a themed render-challenge kit.
28.Dan Snow / History Hit
Platforms / audienceNetwork ~10M monthly podcast listeners (Apr 2025); History Hit YouTube ~2M (2026)
CoversPopular history across all eras; has form covering digital reconstructions
Why they'd careRev-250 programming demand + a visually novel story; but big-media pitch competition is fierce
Pitch angle“The Revolution's 250th, walkable: inside the nonprofit rebuilding 1776 New York.”
29.Cash Jordan
Platforms / audienceYouTube ~1.74M (Aug 2026)
CoversNYC real estate/urban-life spectacle content
Why they'd care“I walked through Manhattan in 1609” is a thumbnail his audience clicks reflexively; content style is sensational rather than scholarly, so fit is imperfect
Pitch angle“Touring Manhattan apartments... in 1664” novelty walkthrough.
30.Stewart Hicks
Platforms / audienceYouTube ~695–700k (2026); UIC architecture professor
CoversArchitecture explainers, building deep-dives
Why they'd careAcademic + visual storytelling; lost-buildings-of-NYC episode potential using TimeWalk footage
Pitch angle“Buildings that vanished: touring lost New York architecture in-engine.”
31.William Faucher
Platforms / audienceYouTube ~271k; UE environment/lighting educator (Black Panther, Watchmen credits)
CoversUE workflows, photorealistic environments
Why they'd careMight feature the project as a workflow case study; primarily a tutorialist, so coverage is less natural
Pitch angleEnvironment/lighting breakdown collab on a TimeWalk scene.
32.Smart Poly
Platforms / audienceYouTube ~178k; UE news and project showcases
CoversUnreal Engine news, tutorials, “cool UE projects” roundups
Why they'd careRegularly showcases impressive community UE projects — decent odds of a mention from a good trailer
Pitch angleSend the cinematic trailer + one-paragraph tech summary for a showcase segment.
