Google’s new Street View feature has caused a predictable sort of hubbub. Privacy advocates are upset; one woman freaked out when she could see her cat through the window of her house; one man was caught peeing by the side of the road. (We interviewed Google’s project manager on our site; his answers, hardly earth-shaking, were still interesting.)
I understand all these concerns. But I’d like to suggest a slightly different way of thinking about Street View.
Several years ago, I was doing research for my first book, Turbulent Souls (republished recently as Choosing My Religion). I knew very little about my parents’ and grandparents’ lives in the old days, so I did as much document research as I could, a little bit in Poland and Israel but mostly in New York City.
I learned that the city’s Dept. of Records and Information Services maintained an archive of photos taken of every building in the city, for taxation purposes. I knew the street addresses in Brooklyn where my mother and father had both lived as kids, so I was able to track down the pictures. Here is the photo of the building in Brownsville where, some years earlier, my father’s family lived and ran a kosher restaurant. (If you can make out the sign on the window, you’ll see that the storefront now belongs to Weiss Monumental Works, which sold cemetery headstones.)
As thrilled as I was to find that photo, it couldn’t compare to the next one I found — of the house where my mother lived as a teenager, at 175 Crown Heights:
Can you see the open door of the house? And then look, just to the left of the door — that woman? That’s my grandmother, Esther Bernstein Greenglass. I can’t quite make out what she’s doing — watering some plants? Chatting with the neighbor? Shaking out a dish towel? But it didn’t matter. How lucky I was, to have found this relic of my family’s life, no matter how small. My grandmother died when I was about six, and I barely knew her; all my other grandparents died earlier. I have always been the kind of writer who likes to have pictures around when I write, so to me this random tax photo from the 1930′s (I think) was a pretty great find.
I realize there is a big difference between a photograph like this one, which must be hunted down in a dusty municipal archive, and Google Street View, which creates pictures that are available to anyone, anytime, anywhere in the world with the click of a mouse. (Alas, 175 Crown Street lies just out of Google Street View’s view, so far at least.) But I think it’s worth considering that what may strike you today as a harsh invasion of your privacy, unforgivable and unwanted, may turn out to be a boon one day to your grandchildren.
and 
. You can also watch it on 
“Several years ago, I was doing research for my first book, Turbulent Souls (republished recently as Choosing My Religion).”
Question for Dubner: I haven’t read your book, but I think you are a christian. Just out of curiosity, would you mind writing about what you think of Steven Pinker and Richard Dawkins. Thanks.
“Several years ago, I was doing research for my first book, Turbulent Souls (republished recently as Choosing My Religion).”
Question for Dubner: I haven’t read your book, but I think you are a christian. Just out of curiosity, would you mind writing about what you think of Steven Pinker and Richard Dawkins. Thanks.
It looks to me like she is looking at a little boy. He seems to have his back arched, like he is holding something heavy. And she has her arms outstretched, as if she is going to take from him whatever he has in his arms.
Then again, it could all be my imagination!
It looks to me like she is looking at a little boy. He seems to have his back arched, like he is holding something heavy. And she has her arms outstretched, as if she is going to take from him whatever he has in his arms.
Then again, it could all be my imagination!
Why can’t Google just leave these cats alone. Everyone knows cats don’t like to be photographed.
Why can’t Google just leave these cats alone. Everyone knows cats don’t like to be photographed.
A short life on the planet. I would believe people would like to be immortal in records long after they are dust. Let the world and society around me be recorded so a million years from now people will know how it was.
I mean it’ll be better if organisms in the future found a good record of life as it is now than to stumble upon a pin or signboard and wonder if we worshipped it.
Of course only the world in public domain should be photographed.There are a lot of embarrassing things that people might be doing when photographed, but serves them right. It is in public domain, isn’t it?
A short life on the planet. I would believe people would like to be immortal in records long after they are dust. Let the world and society around me be recorded so a million years from now people will know how it was.
I mean it’ll be better if organisms in the future found a good record of life as it is now than to stumble upon a pin or signboard and wonder if we worshipped it.
Of course only the world in public domain should be photographed.There are a lot of embarrassing things that people might be doing when photographed, but serves them right. It is in public domain, isn’t it?