Last Chance To See 600 sq mi: Hidden
Missed Connections: Gefilte Fish...and "Chain Connections"
H-Town Rock
Rock Talk, Vol. IX
Finally, Google Street View has come to Houston. Now we can see all those far-flung parts of town we've always wanted to check out — without having to leave Houstonist World Headquarters! Kind of, anyway: Most of the street view streets are on the southwest side, and almost all of 'em are inside the Beltway. No virtual tours of Alief for us, we guess.
If you haven't used Google Street View, here's an introductory video that shows you how to do it. It's a pretty cool thing, really: It shows you 360-degree views up and down selected streets, and you can navigate around and zoom in on stuff using on-screen tools. So, in Houston, you can spin around in the middle of the Pierce Elevated, check out the hookers along Lower Westheimer and even stand (virtually) in the parking lot of First Colony Mall. It's almost like going on vacation!
Google took the 360-degree views from trucks that have been cruising the streets of major metro areas across the country; Houston's one of nine cities to have the service (San Diego, Orlando and L.A. were also added to the ranks Tuesday). We're not sure if anyone will be able to find scenes from Houston to add to the list of bizarre street view sightings — but we're sure gonna try.
Check out the jump for a handful of shots ...
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Can't wait to see what new and interesting finds will surface now. There are already quite a few coming in in addition to the 600 existing finds here:
http://streetviewgallery.corank.com
Why did they do so much of the southwest side and skip over nicer areas like Southampton, River Oaks, the Museum District, and the Heights.
And it seems like they took a lot of the photos early on a sunday morning or something. Stores are closed in a lot of the images, parking lots are empty, and there are no people to be seen. Also the grass seems brown (maybe winter?).
Oh well.. better than nothing.
I imagine the deserted streets are on purpose. Otherwise when you do the 360 rotation in some areas, you would just see cars everywhere instead of being able to see what is across the street.
I think they did do the photography — or at least part of it — during the winter: In addition to the brown grass and leafless trees, you can see that the River Oaks Shopping Center is decorated for Christmas. I wonder how often (or if) these are updated?
In other cities (NYC, SF) you see cars all over the street, and people too, so I don't see why they would want Houston to be carless but not the other cities...
This seems pretty awesome. They should come down to Clear Lake.
I've seen some winter pictures and scenes in Northwest Houston by the Wortham subdivision off of Hwy 290 and FM-1960 West. With gas prices in the panaramics showing as under $2.00 a gallon, I'm not so sure whether it is December of 2006 or 2005.
some of the views i have seen downtown clearly indicate january/february 2006, but there are some instances where photos appear more recent than that.
I added here some amazing Street View from the last update (08/2007).
Saw gas at $2.11 near BW & Westheimer - kinda dates it as over a year old.
Also look at the glitch in Memorial park - try street viewing from the east going through the park - they are off by about a mile for a little while.
sweet. i was wondering where the horse stature from your logo is out.