America - Then & Now

The Library of Congress Street View Explorer allows you to view vintage photographs side-by-side with their corresponding modern Google Street View panoramas, letting you explore how America has changed (or not) over time.

Matt Miller created the Explorer by carrying out a textual analysis of the approximately 95,000 comments on the LOC Flickr account, which includes over 40,000 historical photographs from the LOC's extensive archives. Matt’s analysis of the comments made about individual photos in the collection allowed him to discover the real-world locations of some of the LOC historical photos.

To perform this analysis, Matt focused on identifying comments that mentioned locations, or those containing explicit GPS coordinates or map URLs. These comments provided valuable geographic clues, whether through addresses, coordinates, or cross-streets. Once he had identified the location depicted in a photo, Matt was then able to use Google Maps to find the contemporary Street View of the scene.

The Library of Congress Street View Explorer is a fascinating example of using archival imagery to create a living map of cultural heritage. For anyone curious about architectural change or urban history, the site offers a unique, crowdsourced portal into the past through the Library of Congress' extensive historical collections.

Also See

1940s NYC and 80s NYC - vintage photos of NYC from the 40s and 80s

Sunset Over Sunset - Ed Ruscha's historical photos of Sunset Boulevard

HistoryPin - mapping user submitted vintage photos