Detroit Google Street View oddities

[DetroitSTAR]

I know there was a thread about this a couple years back, but since there have been large expanses with newer photos, has anyone seen anything unique?

I haven't seen anything in Detroit, but here is one from St. Louis...

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...2,54.24,,0,3.6

The 3 story home on the NW corner appears occupied with a woman sitting on the front steps when the picture is taken from the center of the intersection...but in 1 picture in any direction the same building is boarded up!!

[HazenPingree]

I enjoy finding familiar faces on Detroit Street View. You can find local artist Robin Sommers on the East side of Second, just North of Forest. In brush park, you can find a certain manager of the Hub riding his bike. Near Harmonie Park, you can find a certain manager of Russell Street, also riding a bike.

[Bearinabox]

That is indeed an oddity. The picture from the intersection appears to be more recent than the others, which makes no sense because, as every Detroiter knows, the progression is occupied-->abandoned and not the other way around. Perhaps someone who's spent more time in St. Louis than I have can chime in on this phenomenon. The only thing I can come up with is that the house in question is located in a time warp, and in the image from the intersection you're actually looking into the past.

[Honeyman]

It truly is wacky. If you go one way, it's abandoned but a nice sunny day, and if you go the other, it's abandoned on a cloudy, grey day.

Must be some St. Louis Twilight Zone thing. I'm gonna blame Albert Pujols.

[Jimaz]

... but in 1 picture in any direction the same building is boarded up!!

I find it common in Detroit that their intersection photos are different. They must have made multiple passes with different cameras. The intersection photos are often higher resolution with better color.

I hope this thread takes off. I find the subject fascinating.

Another curiousity I noticed is that they seem to deliberately blur faces and licence plate numbers. Once I spotted a campaign sign with a face that had been blurred. Another time there was a patch high up in a tree that had been similarly blurred as if it were a face. This indicates to me that they're using some kind of automated face recognition algorithm. I'd like to learn more about how that works.

[Bearinabox]

I find it common in Detroit that their intersection photos are different. They must have made multiple passes with different cameras. The intersection photos are often higher resolution with better color.

The intersection photos were upgraded relatively recently, and the parts of the city added at the same time [[Green Acres, for instance) have high-resolution coverage throughout. What I don't understand is what they gained by turning the new high-res cameras on only at intersections instead of reshooting larger swaths of the city that way as they were driving between intersections.

Then again, they caught me on one of the low-res passes, so I kind of hope they don't upgrade that particular stretch of road for a while.

[RickBeall]

No, it just proves that there are faces in trees.

[Jimaz]

No, it just proves that there are faces in trees.

LMAO! That explains it well.

[DetroitSTAR]

The only reason I ran across that intersection is that there was a murder across the intersection from there. I was curiously searching the neighborhood around it and i somehow spotted that oddity.

In the old street view I saw my car at my old place in Lafayette Park. In the new one my father is outside mowing his lawn in Lansing.

[hamtown mike]

check out the intersection of beaubien and piquette.

[Jimaz]

There are faces in hubcaps too!

[cman710]

You can see differences in tons of places. For example, here we have an example in Detroit of an improvement being made to a building [[perhaps another time warp?).

Compare this with this.

[cman710]

check out the intersection of beaubien and piquette.

The intersection picture has to be not much more than a year ago, and the previous one must be from roughly the 2006 range, because no work on the facade of the T-Plex had even begun yet.

Down the block, try here to see the construction going up on the development being done on the old Studebaker factory site. Based on the construction, I would also place the high-resolution interesection photo at roughly summer of 2009.

[gnome]

Someone is face down on the sidewalk.
5806 dubois, detroit

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...05.23,,0,12.32

[DetroitSTAR]

gnome, that is truly sad...but a little amusing at the same time. It makes me want to laugh and cry all at once!

[LodgeDodger]

check out the intersection of beaubien and piquette.

That's an old picture. The front of the Piquette building has been updated. The tagging is old, too. Is there something else I'm missing?

[DetroitSTAR]

There is a section of the southwest side that seems to have completely disappeared into a nasty green-purple haze. This is where Abick's Bar once was:
http://maps.google.com/maps?client=f...etroit%2C%20MI

The taggers actually got the google camera.

[EastsideAl]

There is a section of the southwest side that seems to have completely disappeared into a nasty green-purple haze. This is where Abick's Bar once was:
http://maps.google.com/maps?client=f...=12,34.29,,0,5

Edit: Just what I get for deleting and correcting the link - someone responded to the deleted post before I could re-post.

[EastsideAl]

Now you see it
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...12,177.82,,0,5

Now you don't
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...12,132.82,,0,5

Of course, you see this sad little Detroit trick in a lot of places [[including on the opposite side of this same corner), because the corner views are newer than the street ones.

[Detroitnerd]

Not a Google quirk, but I was up here the other day and noticed how, since some streets don't go through, they end on somebody's garage. I mean, I know Detroit was never known for great city planning, but ...

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=...51.84,,0,-1.61

[DetroitSTAR]

Not a Google quirk, but I was up here the other day and noticed how, since some streets don't go through, they end on somebody's garage. I mean, I know Detroit was never known for great city planning, but ...

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=...51.84,,0,-1.61

Anyone else find it incredibly ironic that this is "Burnside" street?

[RickBeall]

>>There are faces in hubcaps too!

That's amazing Jimaz! I was afraid to tell anyone before but every time I lean down and look close at a hubcat I see a face too!

[Detroitnerd]

Anyone else find it incredibly ironic that this is "Burnside" street?

Yeah, look to the right side.

[eno]

I moved out of Detroit four years ago. My former neighbor across the street was fastidious about caring for his lawn. He had the latest lawn assault equipment including power blower, edger, trimmer and lawn mower. His use of the edger was particularly annoying when it would scrape against the sidewalk and make those noises like an amplified nails across the blackboard. My next door neighbor and I called him the Lawn Nazi. Last year I checked a Google map of my former residence to see how they captured my house. I panned across to the house across the street and, sure enough, there was the Lawn Nazi angling his edger along the sidewalk. Check it out at 18424 Winston, Detroit 48219.

[LeannaM]

That is indeed an oddity. The picture from the intersection appears to be more recent than the others, which makes no sense because, as every Detroiter knows, the progression is occupied-->abandoned and not the other way around. Perhaps someone who's spent more time in St. Louis than I have can chime in on this phenomenon. The only thing I can come up with is that the house in question is located in a time warp, and in the image from the intersection you're actually looking into the past.

I haven't been in St. Louis a lot, but renovations are on going. The North Side of the city [[with some exceptions) is overall a disaster, but the South Side of the city [[shown here) is fairly well occupied [[though there are a few rough streets).

The HD image is newer.

I think this is the Gravois Park area, which, from my understanding, is one of the rougher areas of South City, but still not as rough as areas of North City.

I think some people have the misconception that all of St. Louis City looks like the North Side or East St. Louis. That is not the case.

2 miles north is Lafayette Park, which is fairly expensive to live in.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&sour...73.94,,0,-3.49

Soulard has also seen tremendous improvement in recent years. There are apparently quite a few bars there, and Soulard draws in 500,000 people for Mardis Gras.

Downtown St. Louis has improved a lot since 2000, and a few buildings [[The Laurel and the Park Pacific Project) recently got new funding and the rehabbing of those buildings is expected to start again soon.

Here's another example:
Old
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...309.2,,0,-6.17

New:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...309.2,,0,-6.17

My Dad grew up in this area as well.