Our brands · The Local Archives
A field guide to the buildings still standing.
Part walking-tour companion, part community love letter to the buildings a neighborhood refused to let die. Currently keeping watch over Jersey City, NJ. More cities on the way.
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Most historical markers are a bronze plaque and a single sentence. The Local Archives is the opposite: a living, mobile-first guide that treats each old building as a story worth telling well, then hands the microphone to the people who actually stand in front of them.
Part walking-tour companion. Part love letter to the buildings a neighborhood refused to let die. We wanted it to exist, so we built it.
What it does
Curated by staff, kept honest by visitors
- map
A vintage map of the city
Custom hand-styled basemap dotted with bespoke marker artwork drawn per site. Tap a marker for a popup, open the full story from there.
- edit_note
“Notes from the Team”
Every site has a long-form, voice-driven history written by the editorial team: short, punchy, and a little wry, never encyclopedia-flat.
- bookmark
Shortlist & Visited
Signed-in visitors mark sites Interested or Visited, powering a personal saved-sites list on their profile.
- star
Ratings & reviews, earned not free
You can only rate and review a site after you've marked it Visited, enforced in the security rules, not just the UI. One review per person per site.
- photo_camera
Photo & video uploads
Reviews can carry up to 5 images and a short video, building a real, present-day visual record of each place.
- verified_user
Phone-verified accounts
Sign-in is by phone number and SMS code: the trust anchor that gates reviewing and gives the community layer its integrity.
- post_add
Submit a site
Verified users can request new sites for the team to research and add.
- install_mobile
Installable app (PWA)
Manifest, service worker, and icons make it installable to a phone home screen, booting straight to the map.
How it feels
“Coffee-stained parchment, an old spinster's house.”
“A wonder theatre, saved twice by people who refused to take the hint.”
That's “the Guide” talking, a wry, well-read local who runs the tour. Short declaratives, varied rhythm, the occasional rhetorical question, closings that land. It's a committed voice, and it carries the whole app. Display type is Pirata One; body copy is IM Fell English. An old-press feel, top to bottom.
Tech Stack
A complete, shipped application
| Framework | Next.js 16 (App Router), React 19, TypeScript |
| Styling | Tailwind CSS v4; custom parchment/oxblood theme; Pirata One + IM Fell English |
| Map | MapLibre GL with a custom vintage style + PMTiles basemap; bespoke SVG markers |
| Auth | Firebase Authentication (phone number + SMS) |
| Database | Cloud Firestore (sites, reviews, marks, users, site requests) |
| Media | Firebase Storage (review photos & video) |
| Content | Markdown + YAML frontmatter, rendered via react-markdown + remark-gfm + rehype-sanitize |
| Content pipeline | Node publish script → Firestore REST, run as a Cloud Build step |
| Hosting / CI | Docker → Google Cloud Run via Cloud Build; staging + prod; thelocalarchives.com |
Why it's here
A small portfolio, a lot of craft
This isn't a prototype. It's a complete, shipped app: real phone auth, a real moderated content model, a real community layer with safeguards against gaming, and a brand voice that never breaks character. It's how we work: take an unglamorous category, give it real craft in the writing and the design, and build the whole stack to back it up. The same care we'd give your project.
Our brands
Explore what else we've built
Want this kind of craft on your idea?
A real brand voice, a real community, a real product, built all the way. Tell us what you're building. No-pressure chat to start.
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