Image via iTunes
You can now use a very current piece of technology to travel back in time and appreciate the classic sensibilities of old-time New York City.
OldNYC is an app that lets users scour the New York City area virtually. As you open the app you are immediately directed to a familiar vantage of Manhattan.
However, this map is peppered with a multitude of red dots that signify there are images designated for that particular location.
Seeing how the area looked decades earlier is as easy as thumbing around the map and then tapping on where you want to go.
Imagine standing at the corner of Fifth and 59th, on the corner of Central Park. Immediately you are hit with the need to see how this place has changed throughout the years.
Now you can do that with the app. Or, if you are daydreaming from home, you can scour the database with the OldNYC website.
It's there that we discover who to thank for such treasures: "The images all come from the New York Public Library's Milstein Collection. While many photographers contributed to the collection, the majority of its images are the work of Percy Loomis Sperr, who documented changes to the city from the late 1920s to the early 1940s."
As mentioned, this project has its impetus behind an older model that compiled droves of images of San Francisco. Eventually, that turned into OldSF.
And we recently reported on Expedia's brilliant way of infusing some history into the mix with its own time machine interface.
The reason you get things like this popping up is really quite simple: Travelers enjoy visiting places, but it's the context that brings these corners, streets and structures to life.
Poring over pictures is just one way to get in touch with a place you have been to or hope to be some day in the future.
For the rest of the day we'll be hiking through Old New York on our phone.
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