Then and Now

I had a lot of fun playing with Google Maps Street View. For those who are not familiar, you can actually use Google Maps in some areas to get a first-person view of the street. Google does this by driving cars all over the place and taking pictures as the car drives down the street. The photos are tagged with GPS and electronically stitched together. This allows people like me to virtually walk the streets.

Because this is really expensive and time-consuming to produce, these street views are typically only available in major cities. I was mapping our trip out to New York City and having a fun time "walking the streets" using Google Street view (quite useful actually.. I have a pretty darned good idea on where I am going tomorrow!). After I got familiar with my New York City route, I peeked across the river to New Jersey. To my astonishment, my childhood apartments and streets were now available with Google Street View.

I then began walking the streets on near the two apartments where we lived, and the elementary school where I used to go. And that is when I noticed something eerie. I actually remembered how to walk to my elementary school! Sure, some of the buildings were different, but most of them struck me with bizarre jab of deja vu.

As an interesting project, I decided to do some Then and Now pictures of my childhood with what is currently displayed in Google Street View.

First up Gutenberg, New Jersey. In 1970, we lived in the Panorama, located on 6803 Blvd East in Gutenberg. Blvd East is a major stretch of road that is near the Hudson river with a stunning view of Manhattan. I think we lived their until about 1974 or 1975.

Here is picture from 1970 (two years before I was born!):



















The picture below is from Google Street View:














Across the street, there was a stone wall with a great view of Manhattan. The picture shows my mom with my older brother Rusty when he was a new born baby.



Here is the current day shot from Google Street View: (you can still see the stone wall, and the view of the city behind the trees).