We all know that Tammy will be downloading this app, ASAP!
Via NY Post.
A decade ago, you would have to go to the New York Public Library in person to view its Milstein Division, which contains a collection of some 54,000 gripping images of New York City taken between the 1870s and the 1970s.
And, after a tedious request for microfilm, you definitely couldn’t sneak a particularly compelling streetscape out of the 42nd Street branch and take it with you for a side-by-side comparison with its modern-day counterpart.
But now there’s an app for that.
OldNYC — which debuted in May — digitally tags each photo in the collection based on location, and clusters them at thousands of intersections across the five boroughs.
When you open the app, a blue dot shows where you are on a map of the city amid a sea of red dots. But as you zoom into the map, those red dots spread out into tidy rows following the street grid. A click on one reveals a treasure trove of historic photos taken at or near that spot….
“Everyone loves New York history,” says software engineer Dan Vanderkam, who built OldNYC.org, the interactive website on which the app is based. “It’s always fun to see comments from people. This is where they grew up, and they recognize the street! Or they say, ‘This building doesn’t exist anymore,’ or ‘This is still there, but instead of being a department store, it’s now a cafe.’”….
“You have these photos in your pocket now,” says Kate Cordes, assistant director for maps, local history and genealogy at the library. “The expansion of access to the collection has just been revolutionary. Anyone who knows about the site and app can look at thousands of historic photos of New York City.”….
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