I was playing around with Google Street View yesterday and realized that they’ve expanded their coverage of the New York City metropolitan area. (It turns out that they just added the new streets a couple of days ago.) You can now see every street in the five boroughs — Manhattan used to be the only borough with complete coverage, with just main highways covered in the other boroughs. You can also see some main streets in parts of New Jersey.

So yesterday I looked at the homes where both sets of my grandparents lived when I was growing up. (They both lived in different parts of Queens.) I also looked at the two-family house in Queens where we lived until I was three years old, before we moved to New Jersey. And I also looked at my NJ hometown. I could see my house, since it’s right near one of the streets with coverage.

I continue to be amazed by Google Street View, and by how it can evoke emotional responses in me just by letting me look at buildings I haven’t seen in years. Or even just a few weeks ago.