1940s NYC is a new online interactive map created by NYC-based software engineer Julian Boilen. It’s like Google Street View, except every photo taken shows New York City between 1939 and 1941.
“Between 1939 and 1941, the Works Progress Administration collaborated with the New York City Tax Department to collect photographs of every building in the five boroughs of New York City,” the site’s intro reads. “In 2018, the NYC Municipal Archives completed the digitization and tagging of these photos. This website places them on a map.”
The map is littered with black dots, and each dot is a separate photo. Zooming in and clicking a dot brings up the photo that was captured in that location in a viewing panel on the left.
The top of the interactive browser also has a search field that can take you to an exact location or building you’d like to “visit.” If you’re in NYC, there’s also a button next to the search field that centers the map on your current location.
Head on over to 1940s NYC if you’d like to start walking the streets (virtually) of 1940s New York.
(via Laughing Squid)
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