Princess Theatre, Detroit photo courtesy WhatWasThere
The other day I came across a new website called WhatWasThere. This innovative project ties historical photos to Google Maps and Google street views so you can see what was there. You can browse around a map, zooming in and out and then click on photos. The site lays them over the Google street view and lets you fade the old photo to reveal what’s there now!
Unsurprisingly, Detroit has the best coverage so far, and it’s pretty cool to see how sites like Woodward Ave looking north at Jefferson (location of the Spirit of Detroit) or Griswold Street have changed. Water Winter Wonderland (a cool site in its own right) has a sweet shot of the interior of the Princess and says that the Princess Theatre was shuttered in 1922 and located at 520 Woodward. That’s the present site of the old Comerica Bank HQ. At another of my favorite sites for old photos, Shorpy, you can get this photo bigger and even buy a print!
Here’s the link to WhatWasThere for Michigan. There’s not a whole lot of photos to be found (yet) outside Detroit, but one of the coolest things is that you can add your own historical photos, so the site is only going to get better. There are some definite gems though – be sure to check out Grand Rapids City Hall, the seriously cool looking Lansing Masonic Temple at the site of Cooley Law School and the not very much changed Front St in Marquette. A surprising hot spot is Port Huron – check out Sperry’s Department Store to get going.
Michigan in Pictures 
Thanks Andy – This is really cool! – Trish
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I am writing the first book from the American point of view about 19th century rotunda panoramas. These were the biggest paintings in the world,50 x 400=20,000 square feet, housed in their own rotundas which were 16-sided polygons. Chicago in 1893 had 6 panorama companies and 6 panorama rotundas.At hand is the exhibition catalog for “CYCLORAMA OF THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG,located at Princess Theatre,Corner Second and High Streets, Detroit, Michigan” ca mid 1886
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Whatwasthere was created by Enlighten, a company in Ann Arbor, but unfortunately it seems to be a dead (or at least sleeping) project and hasn’t had any significant new features in at least 6 months.
I’ve been keeping my eye on Historypen.com, which is much more full-featured, but can be frustratingly slow at times. Hopefully they’ll fix their speed issues and they’ll have a great site.
In particular Historypen lets anyone add commentary to a picture. On Whatwasthere there’s no way for me to tell you the stories behind the Port Huron pictures that I posted. For instance, that the people are lined around the block in front of Sperry’s because it’s 1946 and Penny’s, the 3rd store down the block, was selling nylons, which hadn’t been available since the U.S entered WWII.
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