When Google Maps first launched its Street View function last year, I thought it was the coolest thing. First off, it’s quite a concept to get your head around: imagine Google vans driving down every road in a given city, taking panorama pictures every 10 feet or so. Incredible!
Then there’s the functionality. It’s incredibly easy to look up a location, click on Street View, and click your way up and down the block to look for landmarks. Someday I’ll have an iPhone or Google phone and search maps while on location. Add GPS, and you’ve got something out of Star Trek.
So while I drooled over the pics from the first 5 cities, I thought my hometown of Rochester would be way down the list for inclusion. We’d probably get Street View somewhere around 2019. Not so! Today while searching for an address, I saw it was active for Ra-cha-cha and some suburbs.
When did this happen? Today, apparently. From Wikipedia:
On June 10, 2008, twelve more cities were introduced: Atlanta, Buffalo, Charlotte, Columbus (Ohio), Fresno, Jackson, Jacksonville, Louisville, Oklahoma City, Sacramento, St. Louis and Virginia Beach. Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming was also introduced. This update also included a number of locations without attributable camera icons. These locations include Bakersfield, Cincinnati, Dayton, Death Valley National Monument, Greenville, Huntsville, Knoxville, Lexington, Omaha-Lincoln, Palm Springs, Reno, Rochester, New York, Sequoia National Park, Syracuse, Toledo, and Tulsa.
It looks like the pictures were taken late last summer. In the pic of Animatus below, we have our neon sign, but the lot next door hasn’t been paved yet.
So spread the word! Look up your house! It’s a surreal experience.
