Google Street View, before and after

Where the Grammy Museum is now.

Google Street View has added a feature that lets you see what a particular view looked like back though time a bit — as far as back as 2007, when the service began. The LA Weekly has compiled some locations around Downtown Los Angeles that have changed substantially in that seven years.

That wasn't so long ago, but it's pretty remarkable to see how our streets have changed in just seven years. Remember 2007? It was the start of what's now considered one of the worst recessions since the Great Depression. It was also the year that Apple launched the iPhone and Google Maps unveiled its Street View panoramas - and thus began our collective obsession with photographing and documenting the world from our phones and computer screens.

We used Google Maps' Street View imagery to compare how L.A. streets have evolved. In some cases, formerly abandoned buildings got a restoration or a new paint job. Beloved businesses have come and gone. In more extreme cases, skyscrapers have been erected in what was once a vacant field. Let's take a trip back in Google Street View time and see how some of our most rapidly-changing streets have fared in the last several years.

Included are the end of LA Live where the Grammy Museum is located, the Arts District block where Wurstkuche and Poketo are, and the Broadway stretch where the Rialto Theatre has been transformed into an Urban Outfitters.