Brooklyn-based artist, programmer and designer Justin Blinder uses Google Street View GIFs to visualize how New York City has changed under the Bloomberg administration, as part of an online public art project called ‘Envision NY 2017’.
Blinder’s contribution is titled ‘Vacated’ and his images are a fascinating before and after look at different areas captured at different points in time, showing how gentrification is changing the face of neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Manhattan.
Using the New York City Department of City Planning’s PLUTO dataset, Blinder was able to search for buildings that were only a few years old, and searched for their addresses in Google Street View. He realized most of the locations were actually empty lots; the images were cached and taken before luxury condominiums or office buildings had sprung up.
One striking GIF of 190 India Street in Brooklyn shows a construction scene in one image and a building in the next. “You’ll realize that they were taken at two completely different times, and sometimes the delta between those times is so great that it actually spans the development of an entire building,” said Blinder.
Check out the GIFs below and find out more about Blinder’s project here.
190 India Street, Brooklyn, NY
11 Bedford Ave, Brooklyn, NY
11 2nd Avenue, New York, NY
253 Eckford Street, Brooklyn, NY
91-93 Bowery Street, New York, NY
[via PSFK and The Atlantic Cities, GIFs via Justin Blinder]