Google Maps Streetview

That is so awesome!

Sometimes I like to pick out random cross streets in New Orleans and "drive around." 1604 St. Thomas Street, down in the warehouses near the river, features a burned out, gutted car.

http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh310/yodelagogo/1604.jpg

I used to live on St. Thomas! It was much nicer where I lived (Irish Channel). So weird to go for a run near the levee and see a ship towering way above you.

New Orleans and Detroit are two depressing cities to explore randomly on Google Street View.

i've been doing this in Ciudad Juarez

Yikes....

I don't find NOLA that depressing overall. There are plenty of blighted areas (and the Lower 9th Ward, obviously), but it's deceptive b/c even totally livable and even desirable areas look ramshackle compared to other cities.

It's just crazy that even in 2011, you get photos like this one of NOLA.

Yeh, you're right. It is pretty heartbreaking. I was there about a year ago and along I-10 on the edges of town, there were still several huge apartment complexes (the kind of generic sprawling ones with dozens of 2-4 story buildings) that stood empty and untouched from the day Katrina came through. It's some zombie apocalypse looking stuff :(

I couldn't find the complexes on Street View, but they're like these, but wrecked and falling apart with no one to even demolish them.

http://g.mnp0.com/dimg/2115260/460x345/2115260.JPG

It's surreal, and it's got to take its toll on people who see them every day. I was only there for 6 months, but even that made me feel *off* - too dramatic to call it "crazy," but not just right.

THERE I AM DEPRESSED ARE YOU HAPPY??

:)

I was looking at SW Detroit, actually seemed kind of nice! Leafy streets with single-family houses that were a little weathered but not run-down or anything. Looked at Zillow and all these houses are valued at $25K each.

http://i999.photobucket.com/albums/af118/jon830/detroit.jpg

Yep, Detroit is depressing as fuck.

You can drop the little orange man into any residential neighborhood of Detroit proper and likely see something like that on any block.

Oh I know, there was just something about this particular view that captured my imagination.

Oh yeah definitely. Some are surely sadder looking than others.

How does someone abandon a castle.

I would love my very own midwestern castle.

however, I'm not going to Detroit to get it.

Midwestern Castle, you say?

That's actually a pretty beautiful corner in jvc's pic.

I went to high school in Charlevoix, MI where this thing is located

http://i.imgur.com/aEz54.jpg

Besides weddings and parties, they hosted rock concerts. I once parked on a hill near it and listened to Ratt and Ugly Kid Joe. Pretty sure they were playing the same night? But I could be merging memories to save mental bandwidth.

Welcome to Miami Beach

Found this today while "driving around" the upper ninth ward in New Orleans. It's the Club Desire, an early showcase for Fats Domino.

http://prestonlauterbach.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/clubdesire-1.jpg

cool find, dp

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3056/3078278579_13712c8943.jpg

http://web.mac.com/jsdart/Site/5years_later.html#6

Wow, that interior shot is crazy. Here's info.

http://www.regional-modernism.com/2008/10/club-desire-threatened.html

Nothing much about this one. Patton Oswalt tweeted about an L.A. 7-11 last week and I found this dude whizzing past it.

http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/4932/screenshot20120507at319.png

andorra, croatia and chile now viewable on GMSV

i get so excited when they add new places!

speaking of which, this is really cool!:
http://gawker.com/5946727/googles-underwater-street-view-will-show-you-the-way-to-fish-clubs-mermaid-graveyards-whale-parks-etc

Welcome to Namie, a Japanese city that has been quarantined since the 2011 tsunami.

20,000 people have yet to return to their homes. Google Street View gives those people a tour of the city's current state.

This is kind of weird - Google Streetview is usually so good about blurring faces. I've even seen artwork on signs blurred because the mapping thought it was a real face.

But, on the one street in America where you probably would demand to have your face blurred, GSV has been leaving everything out in the open.

http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/tt203/pplains/nawlins/Screenshot2013-05-20at102818AM_zps7a234729.png

http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/tt203/pplains/nawlins/Screenshot2013-05-20at102756AM_zpsf895bafa.png

http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/tt203/pplains/nawlins/Screenshot2013-05-20at102805AM_zps72853b48.png

http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/tt203/pplains/nawlins/Screenshot2013-05-20at102029AM_zpsbc133e92.png

http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/tt203/pplains/nawlins/Screenshot2013-05-20at102123AM_zpse79beff4.png

http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/tt203/pplains/nawlins/Screenshot2013-05-20at102103AM_zps4d63c04f.png

http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/tt203/pplains/nawlins/Screenshot2013-05-20at101759AM_zps2634f544.png

http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/tt203/pplains/nawlins/Screenshot2013-05-20at101759AM_zps2634f544.png

http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/tt203/pplains/nawlins/Screenshot2013-05-20at101738AM_zps84bd0361.png

http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/tt203/pplains/nawlins/Screenshot2013-05-20at102421AM_zps86dd2d30.png

http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/tt203/pplains/nawlins/Screenshot2013-05-20at101812AM_zpsaf476e92.png

http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/tt203/pplains/nawlins/Screenshot2013-05-20at101101AM_zpsebcaf821.png

http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/tt203/pplains/nawlins/Screenshot2013-05-20at100817AM_zps44bf4fea.png

http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/tt203/pplains/nawlins/Screenshot2013-05-20at101644AM_zpsf6455261.png

http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/tt203/pplains/nawlins/Screenshot2013-05-20at101617AM_zpsbfe6df44.png

holy shit. makes sodom and gomorrah look tame by comparison.

thought this revive was gonna be about this awesome site which is awesome & should have its own thread & is absorbing & great,
http://www.geoguessr.com/

Oh, cool

My first try: 10070 points

Guessed the right continent for all of them
U.S. plains guesses were close
Thought Alaska was Washington or Oregon

That was fun!

we did discuss that here: Guess the City

Does deserve its own thread. B/c it's a game I don't suck at.

I LOVE THIS GAME.
I can only assume that PP hasn't posted about it yet because he is currently engrossed.

I'm pretty good at it, but once I guessed someplace in the Missouri River valley in the US and it turned out to be Finland. :\

...and who knew that so much of Australia looks like Africa? Or vice versa?

I knew that was Portugese, not Spanish. Dammit!

I kinda suck at World Geography, truth be told.

This is all I want to do all day.

Was greatly helped in one round by the truck that said a company name and "SCOTLAND" on it. Guessed outskirts of Glasgow, but it was Aberdeen.

Was very proud of guessing w/in 100 km of a place in Argentina b/c it looked arid and the truck in the picture was a Mercedes.

New high score.

My first try: 17,230
Was helped greatly by two road signs in somewhat clear view.

Not helped by Brazilian farm looking like the Great Plains of NoAm.
Also not helped by guessing that remote African rolling highway was located in inland South Africa, not the Northwest corner.

I'm lucky I can sound out Cyrillic. One time it plopped me right down in front of the main train station of what was helpfully labeled, in 20 foot letters, СМОЛЕНСК.

Ok, 2nd try: 29,363. I'm going to stop playing this as I know this is the kind of game that will lead to my downfall:

Can you beat 29,363

wao, got within 100km for somewhere in the middle of australia, i'm retiring with that as my final attempt.

Albert got .005 km on one of those. Beware.

just got 19011

Argh, rural Finland looks EXACTLY like northern Minnesota.

I am mostly terrible at this but it's p. compelling! I did just have a good-ish game (read: lucky) until I thought a woody backroad in West Virginia might be in Belgium.

(also I would have been really lucky with place #2 as I was dumped down right outside a big sign saying Kapuskasing - 'cept I had no idea where that was. Turned round and there was a Tim Horton's, though, so that was a pretty good clue)

Do you lose points if you move around before guessing?