A website has compiled New York City property photos from thirty years ago into a searchable "street view" that transports visitors back to the gritty 1980s.
The site — 80s.nyc — uses old tax photos taken by the Department of Finance from 1983 to 1988.
The agency took more than 800,000 color photographs of buildings and vacant lots across the five boroughs as part of an effort to appraise property for real estate tax purposes.
Given the 1980s photos weren't originally taken to be panoramas, 80s.nyc isn’t quite as immersive as Google’s Street View or Bing’s Streetside of today. But the project helps open a window into a bygone era.
The City undertook a similar project in the 1940s, although those photos have yet to be digitized in full and must be viewed on microfilm at the Municipal Archives. Nevertheless, a 1940s street view of New York would be a treasure worth waiting for.
