I was surprised to look back at my neighborhood throughout the years and find that, at least from an aerial view and some harder-to-decipher older photos, things very much looked the same. The streets were organized in the same manner and bore the same names. The school across the street from me appears to go back all the way to 1924 as well. I was also surprised to see that my neighborhood park, Brower Park, appears to go back all the way to 1924.
Some differences I noticed was that there seemed to be more trees in my neighborhood as the years progressed. For example, from what I could tell Eastern Parkway did not used to be lined with trees like it is now. However, I noticed that my neighborhood in Crown Heights still had far fewer trees than other areas of the city. It also looked like the number of transit options in my neighborhood had risen significantly over the years but some of that information was difficult to decipher through the maps and therefore necessitated external confirmation.
It was interesting to compare my neighborhood to my partner’s neighborhood. My partner chose to map out the area around Baruch college as part of her mapping. Looking at the map around Baruch, the first thing that stood out to me was the pretty recent addition of Baruch College’s vertical campus. Additionally, many smaller neighborhood parks have been added to the area over the decades. Although Madison Square Park has notably been on the map since at least 1924.
Besides for small changes in architecture and ownership, the area around Baruch is clearly recognizable. The grid looks much the same as do the street names, the Flat Iron building had also already been constructed.
It would be helpful if some of the additional information populated on the older maps. I would like to see how school buildings, hospitals, parks, and more have been added to different areas of the city. However, I think the information for much of these options is only available for the most current map, because when I clicked the option for “public wifi” areas it still populated on the 1924 map, which seems unlikely!
It would also be interesting to have photos that went back further than 1924 as so much of the city was built around the turn of the century and experienced rapid growth in those twenty years due to the events surrounding the first World War.
Attached are photos of my neighborhood in Crown Heights as seen in 1924 and 2012 (My building is highlighted in red in each of these maps) Also included is my own rendition of my neighborhood from memory.