---
title: "Google Maps Offers Mind-Blowing Street View – It’s Like Walking Around Virtually in a City"
date: 2007-05-31
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# Google Maps Offers Mind-Blowing Street View – It’s Like Walking Around Virtually in a City

Google Maps now offers a street view to major cities on their maps. It's like there are 360 degree web cams set up all over major cities -- you can virtually explore them, cruising up and down streets. It's simply amazing. Check it out.The only disappointment is that more cities aren't available in the street view. I think right now it's limited to San Francisco, New York, Denver, Las Vegas, and Miami.

Watch [this video](https://maps.google.com/help/maps/streetview/index.html) for a two-minute explanation. I've been street viewing New York City for the past little while. Man, I miss that place. I was so creative and alive there. That was before I sold my soul to technical writing. Do a virtual tour walking down Broadway in NYC. Here are a few street view pictures:

[![Times Square](https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/idbwmedia.com/images/timessquare1.jpg)](https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/idbwmedia.com/images/2007/05/timessquare.jpg)
Times Square, the craziest, most visually stimulating place on earth

[![Broadway](https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/idbwmedia.com/images/broadway1.jpg)](https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/idbwmedia.com/images/2007/05/broadway.jpg)
141st and Broadway area, near our first Brownstone experience (Harlem)

[![New York City](https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/idbwmedia.com/images/nyc1.jpg)](https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/idbwmedia.com/images/2007/05/nyc.jpg)
Near Juliard, this is the LDS building that is now a temple

[![Columbia](https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/idbwmedia.com/images/columbia1.jpg)](https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/idbwmedia.com/images/2007/05/columbia.jpg)
Columbia Univ., School of the Arts (where I went to school)

Looking at these pictures reminds me of the time when I had creative writing foremost in my mind. What happened to that? Wow, it's like I'm remembering who I used to be ...

I guess I realized I needed to make a living, and technical writing (after a two-year teaching stint at the American Univ. in Cairo) is where I ended up. But looking back at New York makes me rethink my decision. Maybe I should be a tech writer by day, essayist by night.