Fascinating Pictures of New York City From the 1870s to 1930s

New York City has a long and sprawling history, but looking at the city today, it's hard to tell what it looked like in the past. Luckily, an enterprising coder has solved that problem by creating a Google Street View map for New York City for the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Developer Dan Vanderkam collaborated with the New York Public Library to plot all the old photos from the Photographic Views of New York City, 1870s-1970s collection on an interactive map.

The project, called OldNYC, lets you browse 19th-century New York as easily as you would click around on Google Maps. The collection contains over 80,000 original photographs.

Visit the OldNYC site here, or look below for some of the best photos of the city in the past, marked with their locations.

Brooklyn Bridge under construction, 1873

Fifth Avenue, east side, 1885

Central Park, 1892

Wall Street, west across Broad (left) and Nassau (right) Street's, to Broadway, 1894

Fifth Avenue at N.E. corner of 46th Street, 1899

Broadway, west side, north from West 34th Street, 1901

Skating on the frozen pond at 110th Street and the Botanical Gardens in Central Park, 1905

Fifth Avenue, north from 25th Street, 1909

Fifth Avenue & 42nd Street, 1910

At the racetrack, Pelham Parkway, 1910

Bryant Park, 1912

An open-air concert at the Music Pavilion, Central Park, 1912

42nd Street & Fifth Avenue, 1913

Bathing at Coney Island

Queensboro Bridge Connection, 1917

The Victory Arch on Fifth Avenue at 25th Street, 1918

Broad Street, 1920

Broadway & West 34th Street, 1921

Typical noonday street rush at Sixth Ave., and 34th Street, 1921

Country house (now JFK airport), Queens, 1922

560 Fifth Avenue, at S.W. corner of 46th Street, 1926

West 42nd Street, 1928

Broadway, west side, from 34th to 38th Streets, 1928

Coca-Cola ad Weehawken & Christopher, 1929

19 West 34th Street (Fifth Avenue - Sixth Avenue), ca. 1929

East 86th Street, north side, west of Third Avenue, 1932

Art exhibit, Greenwich Village, 1933

Fifth Avenue, East side, and 42nd Street, 1933

A market scene on Ninth Avenue, near West 40th Street, 1936

Sixth Avenue & West 42nd Street, 1930s

(via Insider)