Through its library of photos, Toronto archives offers city history for free. Google, through its Google Maps, offers city maps for free. Here to match the two – to put history on a map – is Zeitag.
Zeitag is an application that takes old photos of streets, buildings and corners and places them in the here and now – a mobile museum for Toronto. The man behind the app is Gary Blakeley, who answers a few questions about his project below.
How did you come up with the idea for this app?
Three years ago I was on vacation with my family in New York and we visited the site of the World Trade Center. All we found was a giant construction site and it was difficult to give the children a sense of what had once stood there.
I thought it would be great if I could pull up some photographs while we were right on the spot, showing what the towers had looked like before September 11. Unfortunately the technology that would allow me to do this was in its infancy, but when the iPad came along I knew we had all the pieces.
What inspired you to follow through with the idea and make a free iPhone/iPad app?
I’ve always felt that history is very important, whether it’s local, national, or global. I thought that if I made the app and gave it away it would generate interest, and I was right. I’ve had a fantastic response from people all over the world, but especially Toronto.
Eventually I do plan to launch a premium version of Zeitag and the funds from that will help to support the free app, which I’ll always maintain.
There must be hundreds of photos on the app. Did you have a selection process?
Right now there are over 500 photographs on Zeitag TO, which is a tiny fraction of the material available through local archives. We selected images that we thought would educate, surprise and captivate our audience.
How long did it take to collect all the photos?
Most of the photographs come from the City of Toronto Archives, and a few were supplied by Heritage Mississauga. Getting them all tagged in time and space took several months, but this is just the beginning…
You hired a developer to make this app for you, which obviously cost a bit of money. How come you’re not charging for the download?
I didn’t charge because I want the idea to get out to as many people as possible. Any fee, no matter how small, would dramatically reduce the number of people willing to try the app.
I’d like to make some money from this idea one day, but my primary goal was to get it into people’s hands. I hope that eventually viewing archival images where they were taken will just be part of the way we do things.
There are no photos by my house. But I’ve seen old photos of my neighbourhood elsewhere. Are you planning to add more?
Yes, we’re definitely going to be adding a lot more photographs. We’ve already started to build a small team of volunteers and we plan to give them access to the Zeitag upload website this month. If you’d like to see your house or street mapped, maybe you should join the team?
What does Zeitag mean anyway?
Zeit is German for time and tag is, well, tag. Lots of people tag their photographs for location, but we interested in tagging for time as well. Hence the name. Plus it sounds interesting, just like Häagen-Dazs in the ice cream world, but our name means something.
What’s your favourite photo or intersection?
That’s a really tough question. I like seeing the changes that have taken place as a result of the building of Nathan Phillips Square, but I’m also really interested in the wartime work that was done at the John Inglis Company, and Small Arms Limited in Long Branch.
There’s an incredible story of Canada’s, and especially Toronto’s, contribution to winning the Second World War that has almost been forgotten and I want to use Zeitag to literally put that history on the map.
Any plans to do other cities?
We’re already working on several other cities and there will be more free apps available by the end of the summer.
Download the Zeitag app here.
