Take A Tour Of New York City In The 1800s With Google Street View

A developer used 80,000 photos to create the time-traveling project

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History geeks and time-travelers from the 1800s, get ready to have your days made: Old NYC combines Google Maps with photographs from the New York Public Library to create a timewarped version of Street View.

Developer Dan Vanderkam compiled over 80,000 photos from the NYPL’s “Photographic views of New York City, 1870s-1970s” collection and plotted them, using geocoding, to their corresponding origins on an interactive map of the five boroughs.

Old NYC
The creators of the interactive map say its goal is “to help you discover the history behind the places you see every day.” Screen shot by the author
Brooklyn Bridge
The Brooklyn Bridge is one of hundreds of spots on the Old NYC map NYPL
 

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