The Pudding: “This is possible because media artist Yufeng Zhao fed millions of publicly-available panoramas from Google Street View into a computer program that transcribes text within the images (anyone can access these Street View images; you don’t even need a Google account!). The result is a search engine of much of what’s written in NYC’s streets. It’s limited to what a Google Street View car can capture, so it excludes text in areas such as alleyways and parks, or any writing too small to be read by a moving vehicle. The scale of the data is immense: over 8 million Google Street View images (from the past 18 years) and 138 million identified snippets of text.”
“all text in nyc” is a search engine that finds text in New York City’s Google Street View images. Search for any word or phrase to see where it appears across the city—in shop signs, graffiti, advertisements, and protest signs. Using optical character recognition (OCR), the project turns Street View documentation into an exploration tool. Each search creates an unplanned route through the city, revealing patterns in how text shapes our urban environment. Drawing from Street View imagery between 2007 and 2024, “all text in nyc” covers all five boroughs, with most searchable text in English or other Latin-alphabet languages.”
