I was recently inspired, no surprise, by a post on Jim Groom’s Bavatuesdays: “A Childhood Without Proof.” This was about as close to schmaltz as the right Rev. Groom comes, and being a sap myself, I appreciated both the content and the tone.
Jim, the 6th of 7th children, was aware of only one photograph of himself as a baby. One. But last week a Facebook friend from his old neighborhood tagged an image of him at 3. Jim’s post praises Facebook for being good at connecting people with the past, and at making the sharing of memories so much easier than it was just a few years ago. This would have been possible without Facebook; but it would have been more difficult, perhaps to such an extent that it wouldn’t have happened at all. There’s a powerful argument in there that connectivity tools don’t just impact the way that we relate to one another, but also can impact the way we relate to our individual and collective pasts.
This post was on my mind when I began playing with Google Street View, a component of Google Maps that offers street level views of particular locales. This isn’t a new tool, but Google has been steadily adding images as its van tours and shoots different localities (here’s a list of what’s been added). I was surprised to see that the neighborhood in which I grew up has been photographed. North Genesee Drive is of no great consequence — beyond being sandwiched between the neighborhoods that produced Magic Johnson and Malcolm X — but there it is, ready for your virtual tour.
I haven’t been back to my old neighborhood in years, and was pleased that I was able to recreate the bike rides and explorations of my youth, even if through a somehwat antiseptic, Googleized filter. There was no cutting through yards, lemonade sales, or bullies to run from. My memory can fill those things in. Mostly, it was pleasant to visit from my desk in New York.
Here’s a gallery of screen captures; click through for captions.
I recognize that this particular application of the tool appeals to me on a nostalgic level, and while that’s fine for personal blogging and Facebooking and all that, it’s hardly a pedagogical argument. The images above affect me and the kids I grew up with more than they’ll affect you.
But it’s also pretty easy to see how tools like this, free tools available from your desktop, can be integrated into college curricula. Studying the Lower East Side at the turn of the century? Compare the built environment of Hester Street from Jacob Riis’s photographs to images of the area on Google Maps. Use Google Maps to explore planning and architecture in urban, suburban, and exurban neighborhoods. What can we learn about Barack Obama from a virtual tour of Hyde Park? Find images of parks in three different European cities; how does their location and construction reflect their usage? Locate five “Chinatowns.” How are they alike or similar in organization? Writing a term paper on the Atlantic Yards? Use Google Maps to show how construction will restrict traffic. The possibilities are endless. Google Maps won’t tell us everything we need to know about any of these topics; but then, no single source will. A virtual tour of a street or a neighborhood can impart a sense of location and feeling that can augment other information on the path to knowledge. (I should also note that Jim is also ahead of the curve on this).
In the movie below, I use Google Maps to recreate the walk from my home to Verlinden Elementary School. Yes, again, I know, the nostalgia trap; but I was struck by the sheer number of possible jumping off points for discussion, reflection, and investigation produced just by reliving that two block walk. There’s something exciting about an exploratory process that encourages one to explore even more.
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Luke,
Wow, how cool was that, and for me power of so many of these tools lies in this collective past you mention, which is in so many ways fueled by a generative nostalgia. And I know as a history scholar, nostalgia poses a huge problem, yet it also remains one of the most powerful forces for creation in my mind. I always think of Faulkner’s wrestling with narrative, nostalgia and Southern history as a beautiful example of just how powerful it is to miss what you never knew. Yet, here you are missing something you intimately knew and obviously loved. That moment of childhood in the Fall when the mornings were crisp and the days were longer than they will ever be again. It is such an important moment to capture and reflect upon for ourselves. I relate to this narative on every level, many of which are deeply personal–how important is that! Not only are you picking up your friends on the way to school, but your own questions about where the hell everyone is while these images were taken triangulates my place in the narrative. How have communities consistently eroded since the 50s and 60s, and I truly believe they have given the built environment that has been grafted on our new developments. I grew up in a similar space on Long Island, filled with trees and kids and people, and I went back to it after this video and Google Street View tells the same sad story. What might a collection of nostalgic folks like us begin to theorize or imagine from this? I’m working on my own google maps walk to school now, so thank you!
This is a masterpiece on several levels, but the point when it hit me was when your childhood home came up in full color as if I was standing before it, and you begun the narration which is touching and important. A form of sharing that is unique, and will be the basis of so many different ways of narrating theories, historical trends, sociological realities, not to mention the burgeoning forms of narrative. In short, bravo!
I loved this exercise and your trip-to-school-story!
Luke and Jim, thank you for your posts! The issues you raise have a very special value to someone whose childhood was spent in another country. I guess the only google map for us would be memory.
Luke, thanks for this, it’s very cool, and a template for how you could combine some tools like Google Maps and iMovie for class projects. It could definitely work for some anthro/ethnography courses I might teach. I was just speculating, maybe you know if this is true or not: is it possible Google Maps makes a point of only capturing, or only using, images without people for legal reasons? To keep from catching Mr. Jones and Mrs. Smith in a clandestine embrace or other actionable intrusions of privacy? I wasn’t sure if your old street is really that deserted or Google Maps just wants to make it so.
Thanks Wendy– it’s a good question. There’s plenty of Street View shots with people in them– you can see some here. I don’t think there are legal issues (although I do remember reading about a woman who was upset that you could see her cat sitting in her window on Street View); we are all free to be photographed when on public property. As much as I make this argument to the paparazzi that follow me when I leave the office, they never seem to listen.
I think no one happened to be out at that particular moment on my old street… my comment was more a reflection on the intersection of my memory and the images Google gives us; it was far from a scientific argument about the lack of people. I guess in this sense Google Street View can be distortive, like all photographs, I suppose… the tool is best used carefully, and corroborated by/integrated with other resources.
Hey Luke -Great job – very interesting possibilities here!My comment has to do with the pedagogical-practical challenge that many of us who are pressed for time face: I constantly think about what the ratio of orientation time and learning time are going to be for me and my students to learn how to operate the different software tools that will make this type of innovative work possible. For example, the difference between learning html to make a website versus learning to use Wordpress to make presentations and interaction possible in classroom settings. Thanks for your excellent example and for sharing this!John