Post-its from the past

Someday my cafe will come, by Ben Dayhoe, Santa Ana, CA (he's looking to interest some entrepreneur in this prime piece of real estate; click image to read the note on his photo)

The National Trust for Historic Preservation has its “This Place Matters” project that encourages anyone and everyone to submit photographs of a site that speaks to them.  While many of the places have a history, the pictures are all of the now.

In a wonderful variation on the idea, edrabbit curates a flickr gallery called “Looking into the Past” that layers past and present onto place.  (Images above and below are from his gallery)

I’m so amazed by the idea and images, I’m running to pilfer my dad’s old cardboard boxes of photographs to find images I can slap, like a historical post-it, onto the real location.

Is there an app to access images like this?  There should be.  Imagine walking down the street, suddenly feeling a craving for time travel, clicking a button and — zap — there you are at the corner of past meets present.

Thomas Circle, Washington, D.C., Photo by Jason Powell