Google Maps street views of Brooklyn

A-freakin'-mazing 360-degree street views of Brooklyn (plus all of Manhattan, but who cares about that) are up at Google Maps.

Check out some highlights and post your own!

(try "walking around" by clicking on the arrows and drag to view the full panoramic scene)

• Grand Army Plaza
  
  The middle of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel
  
  Astroland
  
  Mmmmm..... Mrs. Maxwell's Bakery
  
  Jennifer Connelly and Chuck Schumer

People are also starting to grab some potentially problematic photos, especially from the hi-res San Francisco pix.

Cool and scary at the same time!

Toms!

PS. the quality of the images is meh

Yea, I wonder if they're tying to soft-launch the service with low-res images. CHeck out San Francisco... those images are fantastic and very zoomable.

Soda

Albaz

Carneviento

Fantastic! I've always wondered where the meat wind was located.

Are these up to the minute? I could use it to make sure my bike is safe while I'm at work.

No, they drive a truck by once, and that's it, at least for quite a while. Same goes for the aerial/satellite photos, some of which are several years old already. I'm sure they have an update schedule, but it's not like they're putting entire swathes of America's cities under constant surveillance.

That being said, they drove down my block, and if you rotate the picture 90 degrees from straight ahead, you can see my front windows and door (I'm on the ground floor), complete with my air conditioner sticking out. Picture is kind of blocky and low-res when zoomed, I had my blinds closed, and I might not even have been home when it was taken, but it's still a bit creepy—they caught a pedestrian walking by, and he's obviously looking at the van taking the pictures. Wonder what they look like? Bet I could find out on Google :idea:

I had fun retracing my local bike routes (including into Manhattan over the bridges) to the extent of the mappable area. It was kind of like playing real-life Myst (or some other point n' click to move adventure video game.) Weird the way everything was frozen in time, and how stuff I go by several times a week somehow seems different when photographed.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/31/the-google-street-view-vehicle-revealed/

http://digg.com/programming/The_Google_Maps_Street_View_Team_Pic

Even weirder, check out the "blighted area" in Ratnerville.


????

Where did GoogleMaps put the surrounding buildings?

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=174+Eastern+Pkwy,+Brooklyn,+NY&sll=40.676236,-73.962386&sspn=0.008771,0.023668&ie=UTF8&ll=40.676098,-73.961399&spn=0.008771,0.017488&t=h&z=16&om=1&layer=c&cbll=40.671809,-73.963359&cbp=1,198.904581993569,0.5,0

Broooklyn Museum!

Fire at the Gowanus Houses?

Rift in space/time at the intersection of 8th & Union

8thandPrez wrote: Rift in space/time at the intersection of 8th & Union

What is actually at that intersection? I can't picture it off the top of my head. Is it one of the synagogues? Maybe they're worried about showing a potential terrorist target? :roll:

Carnivore wrote: [quote=8thandPrez]Rift in space/time at the intersection of 8th & Union

What is actually at that intersection? I can't picture it off the top of my head. Is it one of the synagogues? Maybe they're worried about showing a potential terrorist target? :roll:

nah, that weird pink Christo-like wrap is all up and down that side of Union Street in their imaging

Very interesting.

What kind of camera was used to take these images?
Was it video or still? 360* ?

brooklynleather wrote: Very interesting.

What kind of camera was used to take these images?
Was it video or still? 360* ?

Here is one of the contractor's:


But they used different devices in different places. The SF ones are much better than the NYC ones. In some pics people have located the "google van" in the reflections of buildings.