Then and now: 10 times New York City drastically changed via Google Maps

New York City has always been a major hub for financial, commercial and cultural development with its iconic skyscrapers and dense population. But in the last decade, using Google Maps, we’ve been able to see how the city has changed like never before. Google Maps allows users (depending on location) to view previous eras of an area with Street View. If you enter Street View on Google Maps and click “Show more data” in the top left corner, you can see how a particular part of the world has changed, provided it has been photographed more than once by Google.

New York City is always buzzing with development projects, and some of the city’s biggest projects and most-visited areas have photospheres from 2009. With this, Gizmodo scoured the city for the most abrupt changes in the skyline, going back in time to compare then and now.