It's no secret that I love maps. New maps, old maps, whatever. I can't count the times as a kid, when my dad and I would step foot inside a local gas station, if they had a new map of New York State or Pennsylvania, I grabbed one.

Of course, that was back in the day when they were free. From time to time, I'd buy one of those huge Rand-McNally road maps of the United States, and study each map to see what each state had to offer and wonder what it would look like in person. Most of my travels as a kid were limited to New York and Pennsylvania.

As an adult, I cherished the Trip-Tix from AAA when my wife and I would plan our vacations. They were lifesavers and fun to follow on our journey. And finally, technology brought us Google Earth and Google Maps. Now, not only can we see the world through the lens of satellites, we have street view cars taking 360-degree pictures of streets all around the world.

While they haven't taken pictures of every street in the world (I have yet to see any on dirt roads, and there are plenty of those in Northeast Pennsylvania), it's mind-boggling what you can see.

And to go one step further, there is a feature on Google Maps that in many instances will allow you to see street views from the past. Most, I believe go back as much as 10 years. Could you imagine if we could go back further, like a few decades earlier?

Anyway, we took a look in the past (again about 9 or 10 years) in areas around Binghamton several months back, and thought this time, it would be cool to look at other local communities as well, like Owego, Greene, and Norwich. So here you go, courtesy of Google Maps and our fantastic map researcher and intern, Besty Warner.

Then and Now: Outside The Binghamton Area

THEN AND NOW: See the Evolution of the Southern Tier

 

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