See what the area around you looked like 100 years ago with this new app

The New York Public Library has amassed an amazing collection of New York City photographs from the 1870s-1930s. Prior to the digital age, a look at this vast collection would have required a trip to the Schwarzman Building at Bryant Park (a trip worth taking if you haven’t.) However, you can now access the photographs through OldNYC, an app that lets you use your location to see what the area around you would have looked like in the past.

The collection of images, which began being assembled in the 1920s as a way of preserving the past of a changing city, come from the NYPL’s Milstein Collection. A significant portion of the collection is courtesy of Percy Loomis Sperr, who extensively documented New York City in the early 20th Century.

The app's developers were able to take the photographs and use latitude, longitude and geocoding to apply them to a map for easy accessibility on desktop and, now, in the palm of your hand.  

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