Aerial Photography: 1999-2003

I was first introduced to aerial photography interpretation as an undergraduate geography major in about 1977 BC (before computers). Things are a lot different, with free web access to an immense collection of aerial photography. Everyone should know about the aerial photos at maps.google.com, but an equally impressive site is acmemapper.com. With AcmeMapper the user can examine older (circa 1999?) black and white aerials, "current" (circa 2003) aerials, and underlying topographical maps. My beef with these websites: the lack of date-stamping on these aerial photos. By my best guess, the vintage for the black-and-white aerials for downtown Hayward is about 1999 or 2000; the color aerial is about 2003.

Both of these pictures are great resources to understand what our downtown was like before (and during) the current downtown redevelopment phase, including the massive BART parking lot which is now City Hall and City Walk townhomes. Hopefully either google or AcmeMapper will include new 2005/06 aerials to show how things have changed since 2003....


Downtown Hayward, circa 1999 (from Acme Mapper)



Downtown Hayward, circa 2003 (from Acme Mapper)