Historical Photos and Place - WhatWasThere

I don't believe this is the only mapping web site of its kind, a space or archive to geo-locate older photographs, but What Was There looks great and seems easy to use. How they describe themselves:

WhatWasThere ties historical photos to their modern physical context, allowing you to tour familiar streets to see how they appeared in the past.

There is a limitation...lack of photos. I searched Poughkeepsie, NY. Nothing. I searched Delaware, Ohio. Again, nothing. So I searched around Los Angeles and found some interesting shots like the ones above. Isn't it neat when someone takes a cute little 1930s restaurant, knocks it down and builds something ugly? This is a common occurrence, of course, especially in Los Angeles, but now we might be able to see some of these old art deco gems. So upload!

I hope this or another platform like this takes off. I remember working on a project with a faculty member who was creating a "digital tour" of a place. The local county historical society wanted the professor to pay big bucks to merely scan some of their archival images. And then to present the data to other people outside of campus walls presented even more layers of 'no.'  Needless to say this faculty member's project never made it to the web. Now, perhaps, we can move forward with images that should be freed from shoe boxes and historical society's accordion files.

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