Robert Allen

Detroit Free Press

Editor's note: If you're having trouble viewing the 360-degree images in the app, please open the story in a web browser.

You can now see vacant buildings brought back to life as vibrancy returns to Detroit's core in year-by-year comparisons on Google Street View.

The app that features 360-degree images shot from cars on city streets now includes a time slider, making it possible to see what it looked like to walk down the city's streets between 2007 and 2015. You can tour the past, advancing to different locations and zoom in by clicking (or tapping) the images.

Old Tiger Stadium

The historic home of the Detroit Tigers from 1912 to 2000 started as Navin Field in 1912 and was later developed into Briggs Stadium. In Google Street View, you can see the remains of the stadium – before and after it was torn down.

Outdoor Recreation Center replaces old building

A large, brick building along Atwater Street, previously known as the Detroit Dry Dock Engine Works and the Globe Trading Co. building, was scraped and replaced with the Outdoor Recreation Center in recent years.

Greektown

On Monroe through the heart of Greektown, see how a fairly plain street gets brick sidewalks and improved storefront facades and, finally, outdoor restaurant seating.

Z Lot and The Belt

Especially striking developments can be seen comparing East Grand River in downtown Detroit in September 2007, and then in August 2015 after the Z Lot parking garage and The Belt alleyway, an area where multiple bars and restaurants have since opened: see the Z parking garage and the Belt spring into existence from East Grand River:

Brewster-Douglass Housing Projects

The Brewster-Douglass Housing Projects, four 15-story towers, were abandoned in 2008. Tour the area before and after they were torn down.

Blighted homes disappear from east side neighborhood

Along Alter Road south of Kercheval, homes in disrepair disappear, leaving behind grassy fields

Rosa Parks Transit Center

See the construction of the Rosa Parks Transit Center, which opened in 2009.

David Whitney Building

The downtown high-rise stood empty for many years before it opened as apartment units and Aloft hotels in 2015. In the background, the Broderick Tower can be seen. It, too was vacant for years ahead of renovations that resulted in numerous apartment units.

8 locations, then and now

Contact Robert Allen @rallenMI or rallen@freepress.com.

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