Google has added street views of Milwaukee and if you're looking to have hours of fun, Google your address. The photos were apparently taken this summer (it's clearly warm out) and we know our neighborhood was done in July because our house guests' truck is parked in front in the photo!
Much like checking out your neighborhood in Google Earth, it's oddly fascinating to see the world you see every day captured by Google and available for anyone around the world to see.
I like looking at the people in the street view photos. I wonder if any of them know they're immortalized, captured on virtual film for the world to see. They are Milwaukee's virtual representatives.
When people from China, France and Australia search 1930 E. North Ave. -- and you know they will!! -- they'll see the two people waiting for the bus wearing out-of-season jackets and two others walking by in T-shirts. They might wonder, just like I do, what accounts for that discrepancy.
Surprisingly, perhaps, Milwaukee is out front in this technology. When my neighbors searched their parents' house in Texas, there was nothing. When I searched my childhood home in Brooklyn, there was also no street view.
Hurry, go Google your house!
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
