Google Maps History View

I’ve long enjoyed using Google Maps’ street view to peruse memories as well as places. Walk the streets in Italy from my college study abroad, finding the amazing restaurants I can remember by sight but not by name. When I feel like a real nostalgia bomb I dial up my old house. It’s hard to see the house I grew up in and the foolhardy tree trimming that’s resulted in sun damage (hey, that’s my climbing tree!). I wish there were a way to dial back to see what it looked like when I was there. But, really, how long will it be before Google has this ability? They’re already diligently documenting and re-documenting major metropolitan areas in order to be current with the ever changing street scape. They surely keep the old images. They must have 4 or 5 years of images for New York City, and that’s enough time for the city to look as foreign as my 20 year distant childhood home.

I thought I’d help them out by showing what I want, though it’s exaggerated by my use of the excellent Shorpy archive: