Want to get a good look at what Atlanta used to look like? You don't need a flux capacitor. You just need to know where — and how — to see what came before. These resources will help put a lens on the city's past:
Historic photos (and more)
- Atlanta Time Machine: Currently on hiatus, this site collects then-and-now photography and an odd assortment of often hilarious cultural artifacts
- Christopher Moloney: Famous for holding up old photos and movie stills from the vantage point where they were shot. The FILMography Flickr page | Moloney's Instagram feed, which contains more local historical images
- David P. Henderson: A Flickr account of then-and-now images, often updating ones he shot 25 years ago
- Return to Atlanta: Henderson's blog on Atlanta's forgotten places
- Sunshine Skies: Henderson's deep look at the history of the Atlanta Airport
- Vanishing Georgia: 18,000 photos from a variety of sources
- The Atlanta History Center Album: The center's collection of digital images
- GSU's digital collection: Containing photos and other documents about Atlanta history
- Flashback Fotos: A collection of photo galleries from the AJC's own archives, now kept at GSU
Interactive maps
- Atlanta atlases: Zoom in on Atlanta's street maps from 1878 and from 1930. Another version of the 1930 map includes today's streets overlaid on top, which you can make transparent.
- Georgia's historical markers: You know, the roadside signs. This map from the Georgia Historical Society's shows where to find them.
- HistoryPin: A crowdsourced Google Map with geotagged historical photos, many of which come from the Atlanta History Center's collection
- The War in Our Backyards: A joint project by the Atlanta History Center and the AJC, showing where the Battle of Atlanta took place
Historic maps collections
- Emory's interactive collection: Includes a trolley map from circa 1950
- MARBL historic maps: MARBL is Emory's Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Library: An extensive collection of maps going back to the 1800s
- GSU's collection: This page collects the best sources for viewing Atlanta maps, past and present
- Planning maps of Atlanta (GSU collection): Outlining infrastructure projects such as road projects from decades past
Other visualizations
- Atlanta Explorer: A video presentation showing a 3D rendering of 1930 Atlanta, created by Emory's Center for Digital Scholarship
- Aerial photos: GSU's collection of aerial survey photos from 1949
- Waymarking.com: A crowdsourcing site that collects information on interesting landmarks and locations
- ARC's interactive maps: The Atlanta Regional Commission's maps, mostly visualizing current data and future projections
- Google Street View: This link explains how to turn Google Maps into a street-level time machine
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