As Julio Ojeda-Zapata posted last night and wrote in today’s Pioneer Press, Google Street View launches today in the Twin Cities. If you’re not familiar, you can now look at an address from the street. For example, here’s my house. Notice my poor lawn care but my lawn gnome is hanging out!
This lead me to wonder, when were all these photos taken? The State Theater is advertising shows for very early August 2007, right after the 35W bridge collapse on August 1st. You can drive under the 35W Bridge and you can actually drive on it too, seeing some of the construction equipment. Here’s a shot of the skyline from the bridge with a portable toilet in the foreground. This is probably only days before it collapsed. Rows of news vans line Main Street SE after the collapse.
You can drive through the Lowry Tunnel and you can see storm damage in Acacia Park Cemetery. Take a stroll up US52 over the Lafayette Bridge into Saint Paul. If you keep clicking the NW arrow you can chase a light rail train in reverse. There’s some workers rebuilding East Lake Street.
For more in Saint Paul, check out the state capitol but you can’t see the forbidden-to-photograph oven at Punch Pizza.
Surprisingly, a lot of Highland Park isn’t available for Street View as well as White Bear Lake. But you can visit St. Olaf College down in Northfield. Here’s a guy that looks like he just left Sex World. Heh.
They have my office to see too. One of the owners parked his Mazda 6 out front and my manager’s VW Bug is in the lot. Who knows where my car is!
Find anything interesting strolling around Street View in the Twin Cities? Please comment! Remember when linking Google Maps, click on the “Link to this page” link to get the proper URL.
Comments 24
I’m so sick of not being able to download and install flash at work.
Posted 11 Dec 2007 at 08:22 ¶Not very exciting, but here’s my house. Taken before we bought the place in July 2007.
Posted 11 Dec 2007 at 08:43 ¶cool. thanks for the quicky links and highlighting the shot of the bridge.
Posted 11 Dec 2007 at 08:44 ¶It takes a lot of time to go through every street. I’ve seen a couple of the google cars in various cities mapping out routes. Its rather hard to miss them – they typically have an 4 foot pole attached to the car with a camera on top and more computers inside than most small towns have. Also – google is written on the side of the car.
Posted 11 Dec 2007 at 09:09 ¶I wonder who ‘invited’ them into the private roads in North Oaks? Most of that private city is documented.
Posted 11 Dec 2007 at 09:36 ¶I am having way too much fun with this, but I’ve noticed that for many addresses (including my own) I have to scoot around and rotate a lot. They shot my house after I had the exterior painted and the front steps replaced. And I was home at the time.
Posted 11 Dec 2007 at 09:55 ¶My house directly behind tree with the red doors.
http://urltea.com/2c8u
This is so cool.
Posted 11 Dec 2007 at 10:10 ¶Aaron – Cody spotted Google in September.
http://urltea.com/2c8v
Posted 11 Dec 2007 at 10:11 ¶Some of the photos are from after the collapse. See here. What’s amazing is they got to my warehouse apt a day or two before the collapse – it’s been roped off and ripped up ever since
Posted 11 Dec 2007 at 10:12 ¶Go down SE University Ave – more news trucks and gawkers This must be a few days after the collapse – the initial 72 hour period, it was still packed down there. Makes sense the googlecar wouldn’t go out in the middle of it.
Posted 11 Dec 2007 at 10:29 ¶Ha! Good find Noah. Don’t mess with this dude!
Posted 11 Dec 2007 at 10:36 ¶I’m sure he’s much nicer in person. =)
It looks like the Googlers stopped off for some Bobby and Steve’s BBQ.
Posted 11 Dec 2007 at 10:59 ¶I’m pretty sure this shows my wife picking up after our dog, Gibson, in front of our building.
Posted 11 Dec 2007 at 11:10 ¶Our loft in St. Paul – nothing to exciting.
Though the coworkers around me were going crazy looking at signs on various buildings.
I’m bummed out I missed seeing the vehicle though.
Posted 11 Dec 2007 at 11:29 ¶Interesting – you can go around the entirety of Lake Calhoun but Lake Harriet got totally snubbed!
Posted 11 Dec 2007 at 15:19 ¶Family startled by strange googlemobile in their culdesac
Posted 11 Dec 2007 at 15:21 ¶nice “sluth”ing, chief!
saw it on 4!
Posted 11 Dec 2007 at 17:34 ¶this is addicting, thanks for all the sweet links!
dang, my house is abstract and blurry.
Posted 11 Dec 2007 at 17:48 ¶If you want to drive through a barricade try going North from this location. Evidently they passed through the area before and after August 1st.
Posted 11 Dec 2007 at 19:19 ¶Ed Kohler just posted and found these dudes walking out of 22nd Avenue Station. Owned.
Also, thanks for the hat tip, WCCO.
Posted 11 Dec 2007 at 19:28 ¶
Posted 11 Dec 2007 at 21:40 ¶The missed a spot!
The shot of the Uptown Theater here shows that this particular shot was taken between July 8 and 14, as the midnight movie marquee is changed every week.
Posted 11 Dec 2007 at 22:53 ¶Looks like this post and the people that commented helped Julio Ojeda-Zapata write this story. Cool that many of you got to chat with him and get in the print.
Posted 13 Dec 2007 at 09:19 ¶77 degrees at 77 N washington
the google car and a cop car
Posted 17 Dec 2007 at 11:42 ¶Trackbacks & Pingbacks 3
[...] this one over at the Pioneer Press (registration required, I think). Aaron did quite a bit of browsing around the old 35W bridge and found that the time photos were take varies, but you can drive across the old bridge as of [...]
[...] I’ve been having way too much fun with Google Street View. [...]
Google Streetview Hits Home…
Google Maps’ StreetView of Minneapolis and Saint Paul is pretty cool but the photos are from the summer and I’d like to see some integration with My Maps or other datasets in order to use Google Maps as an augmented reality tool….
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