| Hi HN Over the last few weeks I started a small side project — partly to learn frontend development (I usually work as a backend developer in my 9-5), and partly because every time I walk around I keep wondering: “what did this place look like in the past?” Until now I just searched for "<place> historic photos", but they rarely come with coordinates or a way to compare them with how the place looks today. So I built something like a “Wikipedia/GeoGuessr for historical images” — ideally community-maintained over time. Right now, it’s very barebones:
- an interactive map to browse the uploaded images
- a simple side-by-side image comparator It’s still an MVP with a small dataset (mainly Turin, Italy, since that’s where I live), but I plan to expand it as I have more time. I’d love your feedback:
- Does the concept sound interesting?
- What features would make it more useful or fun?
- Do you know of any open datasets of historical photos I could integrate? Happy to answer any questions, and very open to suggestions |
Somewhat related, but made me remember Color Labs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_Labs) which tried to build a social network where you could see photos taken by other people in your location.