Is anybody else dying to see old pictures of where they live

[Bazzwell]

I've quite a few personal shots of my old hometown of California here in Southwest Pennsylvania from the 1970's. Many others can also be found by punching around the net. Facebook groups are a decent place to find such things for your home area.

What strikes me is how very different the memories are versus the reality of the photos. Memory tells me it was like living in Mayberry when the photos show a gritty town marked by rundown buildings, old businesses in their last days of existence, a town I wouldn't spend a minute in today. When last I visited I was pleasantly surprised at the clean look of the place, empty lots where condemned buildings used to sit, tree lined streets. Not Mayberry yet but a far cry from what the old photos show.

Guess the photos in the end reminded me of many of the reasons I left in the first place.

[blauskies]

If anyone want's to see old aerial shots, that is before Google Earth when they would use airplanes, Penn Pilot has photos going back to the 1930's all over PA.

Penn Pilot Photo Centers

Just enter in your address, select the era and click on the nearest Red dot and download the high resoultion image and zoom in.

[Tantalust]

Shorpy.com has a lot of good older photos of locations around the US.

[Borntoolate85]

When the weather warms up, head to yard and estate sales, and even if you don't see any old photos, ask the seller if s/he knows of anyone who has them or are willing to assist him/her on digitizing her collection for perhaps as small fee. Also look for blank VHS or Betamax tapes (or Super 8 film for the '70s) that may have been recorded off of television. In addition to some local advertisements that may pop up, you may even find old newscasts. I've found a portion of a WPVI newscast from 1984, as well as a clip of the newsmagazine (also off of WPVI) Visions. Of course, those stations are too busy to be digitizing their stuff unless if the Internet Archive or something assists them in their TV News project. Commercial areas, festivals, sporting events, concerts, and defunct establishments of course will be the most desirable in terms of defining an era. People may not know about it, but many people trashed their VHS/Betamax collections that may have contained to valuable video content on them if they were movies or shows recorded off the TV that had the nightly newscast following the movie, or in extreme cases, the early morning news if timeshifted to an overnight airing.

Keep in mind though that film was relatively expensive in the days before digital cameras, so shot selection was naturally more limited, even if Polaroid was quite popular then.