A landmark’s address tells you where to find it. Seeing the surrounding buildings, streets, and terrain gives you another way to understand its setting. Discover Landmarks adds a 3D city view for San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City, and Chicago, using Google’s photorealistic imagery where available.
For residents, history enthusiasts, and preservation professionals, YourCity Solutions’ feature offers a visual companion to designated historic place records. You can explore the city around a place of interest while keeping a useful distinction in mind: imagery shows physical surroundings; designation records document official historic status.
The new view adds a three-dimensional perspective to landmark discovery. You can consider a historic place as part of its surrounding city rather than relying on an address alone.
Discover Landmarks brings designated historic places into a city-based index. The 3D addition gives you another visual reference for exploring those places, with imagery coverage determining what you can see in a particular area.
Neighborhood context helps you understand the relationship between a landmark and the places around it. You might want to consider how a building sits along a street, how nearby structures shape a block, or how terrain affects the surrounding landscape.
That visual question complements the record-based work behind map-based building search. A city model helps with orientation, while organized records help you identify the place you are researching.
Historical photographs provide another kind of context. Our designation photograph gallery article explains how New York City’s designation images connect buildings with their preservation records.
Discover Landmarks uses Google’s photorealistic 3D imagery for the new city view. The visual foundation represents buildings, terrain, and natural surroundings in three dimensions.
Esri’s technology overview describes this imagery in the context of its ArcGIS basemap offering. It provides background on the visual technology, rather than a list of features available in Discover Landmarks.
Use the imagery for orientation and visual context. Do not treat its realistic appearance as proof of current conditions, exact dimensions, or official preservation boundaries.
Click the 3D toggle button on the map to open the 3D view in Discover Landmarks. The feature is available for San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City, and Chicago, where imagery is available.
When exploring one of these cities, use the map’s 3D toggle to see the surrounding city in three dimensions. Keep imagery coverage in mind when viewing a particular location.
The feature is available for San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City, and Chicago, where Google’s 3D imagery is available. Start with a city or historic place you know and consider how its surroundings add to your understanding.
Availability in a city does not mean every location has equivalent imagery coverage. The four-city rollout describes this feature’s availability, not the full geographic reach of the landmark index.
City imagery complements official records by supplying visual surroundings, not legal designation information. Discover Landmarks compiles records from public designation rolls and cross-references primary agency databases, including federal, state, and municipal sources.
For agency teams, connecting visual information with dependable records reflects the broader value of a municipal data hub. Keep the purpose and source of each layer clear when explaining a historic place.
This is also a practical example of the GIS approach discussed in our municipal technology work: location adds useful context to information people already need.
The new 3D view gives you another way to explore historic places in the four supported cities. Use it alongside designation information and historical photographs, with each source answering a different question about the place.
YourCity Solutions connects data and visualization with practical exploration. Begin with a landmark that interests you and see how its surrounding city changes the questions you want to ask.
Discover Landmarks offers the feature for San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City, and Chicago, where imagery is available. Coverage can vary within those cities, so the presence of a city view should not be read as a guarantee for every location.
No. Photorealistic imagery represents physical surroundings, not official designation boundaries. Discover Landmarks draws designation information from public records; use the relevant preservation agency’s records when you need to confirm a site’s protected status or the extent of a designated district.
No. Discover Landmarks’ city view provides surrounding spatial context, while historical photographs document a place at a particular point in its history. Using those sources together can help you separate what a building’s setting looks like from what its historical record documents.