Black Rock City - the layout

The community created on the Playa is called Black Rock City. There really is no such physical place – it is just nomenclature for the community, so the volunteer rangers (mostly dispute mediators and perimeter patrollers) are naturally called BRC Rangers.

BRC is large but is a small part of the Black Rock dry lake, which is the second largest nearly flat surface in the northern hemisphere, dropping roughly 5’ per 25 miles toward a sink. The BLM-permitted area is the pentagon shape on the photo (darkened for emphasis). It is bound by an orange trash-catching fence and is patrolled to keep out people without tickets. BRC even has an airport and control tower, all temporary. There are an unbelievable number of chemical toilets and the streets are occasionally dampened by water trucks to hold down dust. Burners are expected to leave no trace and most comply; volunteers clean up what remains after the others have gone. RVrs must haul out their gray and black water.

The temporary village of Black Rock City lies in the circle in the pentagon.

Picture a clock face. At the center of the clock is “the man” – the forty foot tall construction that is ceremonially burned Saturday evening. (Burning Man ran from August 25th to September 1, 2008. We arrived on August 27th and left September 1 in the morning.)

The first street is an arc called the Esplanade. It is 2700 feet from the Man and runs from 10:00 to 2:00 (the long way). The larger and generally more spectacular theme camps and villages occupy the Esplanade.

Radiating out from the Esplanade are streets at every half-hour point. These streets are named 10:00, 9:30, 9:00, and so on through 2:00. There are 11 cross streets behind the Esplanade, called successively A Street through K Street. Burners occupy these areas in independent camps or as part of small villages and theme camps. Although I couldn’t find their presence in 2008, in recent years there has been an area called Burnstream Ct where Airstream campers tended to gather. This year we camped with other independents on J (or Jeep) Street, between 7:30 and 8:00.

At the center of the Esplanade is Center Camp, a large tent-covered gathering place for anyone wanting to gather. It is where you can purchase coffee, tea, and cold drinks, but not water, which you are expected to have. The only other area where cash can be exchanged is at Arctica, which sells ice at reasonable prices for being in the middle of a desert..

The open area featuring the Man also contains other often huge and small art projects, kinetic and otherwise, electronic or not, scattered seemingly randomly. This area is vast so bicycles are used to explore, or rides are hitched on passing mutant vehicles or art cars. (Once camped, you cannot use your private vehicle for transportation unless it is registered with the Department of Mutant Vehicles as having something to say, or perhaps having nothing to say but doing it creatively.)