Travel Back In Time With Yahoo! Maps

M@
By M@ Last edited 149 months ago
Travel Back In Time With Yahoo! Maps
Remember this fellow? It's the old Wembley, with twin towers intact.
Remember this fellow? It's the old Wembley, with twin towers intact.
Hey Astoria fans. She's still there, as are all the buildings on Charing Cross Road that were swept away for Crossrail. The brightly coloured St Giles scheme is also a twinkle in the architect's eye.
Hey Astoria fans. She's still there, as are all the buildings on Charing Cross Road that were swept away for Crossrail. The brightly coloured St Giles scheme is also a twinkle in the architect's eye.
St Pancras International is decidedly non-international.
St Pancras International is decidedly non-international.
The Olympic Park. Yahoo! remembers when it was all fields, and light industrial units.
The Olympic Park. Yahoo! remembers when it was all fields, and light industrial units.
Spot the Shard? No you can't because there's another massive building on the site at London Bridge. Another tower at top left has also since been demolished.
Spot the Shard? No you can't because there's another massive building on the site at London Bridge. Another tower at top left has also since been demolished.
Those who hate the One New Change shopping centre can reminisce about how things used to be.
Those who hate the One New Change shopping centre can reminisce about how things used to be.
The Home Office-to-be in Pimlico. Note, you can still see the outline of one of the circula rotundas - old gas infrastructure converted into a bunker during WWII.
The Home Office-to-be in Pimlico. Note, you can still see the outline of one of the circula rotundas - old gas infrastructure converted into a bunker during WWII.
A half-complete More London.
A half-complete More London.
Heathrow Terminal 5 not yet on the radar.
Heathrow Terminal 5 not yet on the radar.
When Spitalfields Market was just a market.
When Spitalfields Market was just a market.
There's Highbury, but no sign of the Emirates Stadium.
There's Highbury, but no sign of the Emirates Stadium.
Shepherd's Bush: more west field than Westfield.
Shepherd's Bush: more west field than Westfield.

Remember the days when Arsenal still played at Highbury? Those halcyon times when Heathrow was content with four terminals, when you could catch a train to Paris from Waterloo, and when Westfield was, if you had to guess, the latest boyband off of that new Popstars show on ITV. A time when the name 'Stratford' was more likely to conjure up thoughts of The Bard than The Olympics.

In Yahoo! Maps, London is stuck in a new-Millennial timewarp. The satellite view still shows the old Wembley Stadium, complete with twin towers. Demolition of the landmark was completed in 2003, but hasn't even started here. Over at St Pancras, work on the mammoth new Eurostar terminal has barely begun, while Heathrow's Terminal 5 is a giant building site. The Olympic Park, meanwhile, remains a vast industrial estate.

The vintage satellite photography, now almost a decade out of date, is a bit of a pain for anyone trying to geotag their Flickr images (the photo service uses Yahoo! Maps), but is a real boon if you're trying to remember what the hell used to be on the site of a particular new development. Now, if they could produce a 10-year-old version of Street View, we'd be very happy.

Last Updated 25 October 2011