4 ms·

The London Time Machine

85 points by kawera 9y ago

Bromskloss 9y ago
Similar things for Sweden, with a couple of different interfaces: - Maps from today and from about 60 years ago. Slide the barrier left and right. https://kartor.eniro.se/?c=59.314311,18.069699&z=16&l=historic https://kartor.eniro.se/?c=59.314311,18.069699&z=16&l=histor... - Comparison between 20 different maps from 1625 to today. Click "Byt kartvy" (found at the right edge) to get a side-by-side view. https://stockholmskallan.stockholm.se/sok/?q=&map=true https://stockholmskallan.stockholm.se/sok/?q=&map=true
adben 9y ago
Comic sans?
notlisted 9y ago
Nice. Not London, but the NY Public Library has a very nice set of "time traveler" tools for NYC here: http://spacetime.nypl.org/ http://spacetime.nypl.org/
mintone 9y ago
I built a platform that does this a year ago, using a combined stack of human and AI (Comouter vision) - it’s somewhat in maintenance mode because I haven’t had time to work on selling it, but there’s a version of Paris on the home page: http://www.papermap.io http://www.papermap.io
- brailsafe 9y ago
  That looks really impressive and I'd be very curious to learn about how you put it together. Also, what happened to "Our dedicated team of developers are improving the papermap system constantly so be on the lookout for new features coming soon!"? ;)
LiamPa 9y ago
Can’t see Newgate prison, ashamed of it even back then?
calpaterson 9y ago
It's always incredible to me to how many areas of London are new. The East End here is some text describing City wards. The West End is names of sponsors. Chelsea isn't even within the bounds of the map. There is only a single crossing. Etc.
- theoh 9y ago
  The original map dates from 1682, which didn't jump out if it was mentioned at all on the linked site. So "new" is relative, i.e. less than 335 years old.
  - calpaterson 9y ago
    Well, something being new is always relative isn't it?
    - theoh 9y ago
      Yes. I would argue, though, that the really striking thing about new bits of London is the expansion between 1918 and 1939, which increased the built-up area by 200%. That was real inflationary growth.
- Reason077 9y ago
  Yet Old Street was already "Old", 335 years ago!
  - barrkel 9y ago
    Old Street is roughly colinear with Old Ford Road, which went over the Lee (aka Lea). It's also colinear with Oxford Street. The route is pre-Roman. (I used to live just off Old Ford Road, and commuted along this route for about 8 years.)
dzdt 9y ago
The location of streets and subdivision of property is incredibly long lasting. That makes it such an important part of city planning!
mvexel 9y ago
I really like the magnifying glass! A comparison with much more recent history, OpenStreetMap in 2007 vs now: https://mvexel.github.io/thenandnow/#13/51.5/0.0 https://mvexel.github.io/thenandnow/#13/51.5/0.0 - London is where OSM started, so it was pretty well mapped even in 2007 (OSM started in late 2004). If you look at other parts of the world or even the UK, it's easy to imagine how almost everyone thought it was a crazy idea that would never get off the ground. There are some rendering issues (like water missing) due to the OSM schema going through some significant changes over the years.
imrehg 9y ago
Fun! Made something similar a while back with Taiwanese cities in WWII and now, the changes are quite similarly substantial! https://imrehg.github.io/taiwanmap/ https://imrehg.github.io/taiwanmap/
lqet 9y ago
Did something similar a long, long time ago: https://patrickbrosi.de/tuemap/ https://patrickbrosi.de/tuemap/
jamessb 9y ago
The National Library of Scotland has a good collection of digitised maps (mostly for the UK, but also less-detailed maps of Europe and the world) [1]. If you click "Explore georeferenced maps" you can superimpose the historical map on top of a modern base map (or Bing Satellite imagery), and then adjust its transparency with a slider: here's a similar view using the 1885-1093 One-Inch OS survey map [2] (for comparison, the map pasted by the OP is from 1682, which an information box tells you, but only if your browser-window is wide enough). [1]: http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore [3]: http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=14&lat=51.5100&lon=-0.0875&layers=161&b=2 http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=14&lat=51.5100&lon=-0.0...

85 points by kawera 9y ago

Similar things for Sweden, with a couple of different interfaces: - Maps from today and from about 60 years ago. Slide the barrier left and right. https://kartor.eniro.se/?c=59.314311,18.069699&z=16&l=historic https://kartor.eniro.se/?c=59.314311,18.069699&z=16&l=histor... - Comparison between 20 different maps from 1625 to today. Click "Byt kartvy" (found at the right edge) to get a side-by-side view. https://stockholmskallan.stockholm.se/sok/?q=&map=true https://stockholmskallan.stockholm.se/sok/?q=&map=true

adben 9y ago

Comic sans?

notlisted 9y ago

Nice. Not London, but the NY Public Library has a very nice set of "time traveler" tools for NYC here: http://spacetime.nypl.org/ http://spacetime.nypl.org/

mintone 9y ago

I built a platform that does this a year ago, using a combined stack of human and AI (Comouter vision) - it’s somewhat in maintenance mode because I haven’t had time to work on selling it, but there’s a version of Paris on the home page: http://www.papermap.io http://www.papermap.io

brailsafe 9y ago
That looks really impressive and I'd be very curious to learn about how you put it together. Also, what happened to "Our dedicated team of developers are improving the papermap system constantly so be on the lookout for new features coming soon!"? ;)

LiamPa 9y ago

Can’t see Newgate prison, ashamed of it even back then?

calpaterson 9y ago

It's always incredible to me to how many areas of London are new. The East End here is some text describing City wards. The West End is names of sponsors. Chelsea isn't even within the bounds of the map. There is only a single crossing. Etc.

theoh 9y ago
The original map dates from 1682, which didn't jump out if it was mentioned at all on the linked site. So "new" is relative, i.e. less than 335 years old.
- calpaterson 9y ago
  Well, something being new is always relative isn't it?
  - theoh 9y ago
    Yes. I would argue, though, that the really striking thing about new bits of London is the expansion between 1918 and 1939, which increased the built-up area by 200%. That was real inflationary growth.
Reason077 9y ago
Yet Old Street was already "Old", 335 years ago!
- barrkel 9y ago
  Old Street is roughly colinear with Old Ford Road, which went over the Lee (aka Lea). It's also colinear with Oxford Street. The route is pre-Roman. (I used to live just off Old Ford Road, and commuted along this route for about 8 years.)

dzdt 9y ago

The location of streets and subdivision of property is incredibly long lasting. That makes it such an important part of city planning!

mvexel 9y ago

I really like the magnifying glass! A comparison with much more recent history, OpenStreetMap in 2007 vs now: https://mvexel.github.io/thenandnow/#13/51.5/0.0 https://mvexel.github.io/thenandnow/#13/51.5/0.0 - London is where OSM started, so it was pretty well mapped even in 2007 (OSM started in late 2004). If you look at other parts of the world or even the UK, it's easy to imagine how almost everyone thought it was a crazy idea that would never get off the ground. There are some rendering issues (like water missing) due to the OSM schema going through some significant changes over the years.

imrehg 9y ago

Fun! Made something similar a while back with Taiwanese cities in WWII and now, the changes are quite similarly substantial! https://imrehg.github.io/taiwanmap/ https://imrehg.github.io/taiwanmap/

lqet 9y ago

Did something similar a long, long time ago: https://patrickbrosi.de/tuemap/ https://patrickbrosi.de/tuemap/

jamessb 9y ago

The National Library of Scotland has a good collection of digitised maps (mostly for the UK, but also less-detailed maps of Europe and the world) [1]. If you click "Explore georeferenced maps" you can superimpose the historical map on top of a modern base map (or Bing Satellite imagery), and then adjust its transparency with a slider: here's a similar view using the 1885-1093 One-Inch OS survey map [2] (for comparison, the map pasted by the OP is from 1682, which an information box tells you, but only if your browser-window is wide enough). [1]: http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore [3]: http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=14&lat=51.5100&lon=-0.0875&layers=161&b=2 http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=14&lat=51.5100&lon=-0.0...