Google Saratoga

So it’s a late Saturday night on Caroline Street and you’ve got a hankering for naked women your sobriety just can’t seem to quench. After a few more gin and tonics, you calmly convince your somewhat-sober friend the advantages of driving your performance automobile top speed down a few exits on the Northway to Night Moves, a destination you assure is the “premiere adult club” in the Capital Region, if not the world. After a few more belts of hooch on the way down, you find yourself strutting through the club’s front door, past the burly bouncer and square into the stark pitch of a foul blackout.

Hours later, you regain consciousness outside in a weed-choked flower planter within sight of your sleek silver vehicle. No big deal, you think, hastily fidgeting for your keys; it’s not like anyone saw your car parked directly in front of a strip club. And that’s when Google Street View’s camera car rolls by.

Yes, the Capital Region’s streets are now plugged into the somewhat controversial three-dimensional mapping program launched by the company brand name that created its own word in the English and every other language. Particularly connected is Saratoga Springs, which has nearly all of its streets featured on the digital mapping service.

With the easy-to-use interface, anyone with a decent computer, a broadband internet connection and half a pulse can take a life-like trip through the Spa City even if they’re located halfway around the globe. See, representatives from the omnipresent company dispatched a vehicle equipped with a special panoramic camera to capture images from every public thoroughfare in the city.

Saratoga Springs joins the fellow cities of Albany, Glens Falls, Schenectady, Troy, and Amsterdam, as well as the large towns of Colonie, Clifton Park and a hodge-podge of what’s what around the Capital Region featured on the service. These areas are considered “Albany” by Google, which added a dozen “cities” to their map service Tuesday. To date, 29 areas in 27 states are featured with the service.

It’s an oddly detached view of the world that greets us every day, but also a record of the places that no longer stand. Take for example the fire that ripped through Corinth Tuesday, punching a pronounced hole through the face of the flailing town’s Main Street. Or the fire that ravaged the three-unit apartment on Saratoga’s Grand Street last month. What was consumed by flames is now immortalized on Google; a grim reminder of how quickly the landscape around us can change.

Likewise, even Bruce Levinsky’s wanton disregard for the historic wing of the former Rip Van Dam couldn’t permanently erase it from the cityscape. As the Google car wheeled around, the swarthy developer was still priming his wrecking ball for the 19th century structure he turned into a parking lot.

The bizarre part about cruising the streets of Saratoga Google-style is that they all seem empty. Judging by the sky and shadows, it appears as though many of the images were taken in during the early dawn hours, possibly on a Sunday, when few street dwellers are alert enough to notice a peculiar car chronicling every public space in the city limits.

Google did, however, take a bit of caution. Even though the camera crew rolled down just about every back alley and side street in the city proper, they missed the one section of Saratoga most frequently visited on a yearly basis. Somehow, someway and for some reason, the unabridged tour of Caroline Street eluded the Google camera car.

But a quick warning: Google Street View is not for the weak-willed procrastinators of the Internet world. Despite its eerie implications, the tool is strongly addictive. If Google Earth and its accompanying satellite images of the planet were a sniff, this new feature is akin to freebasing and mainlining at the same time.

Hours can melt away on this service. It’s a fuel efficient way to explore the world around without once setting foot into the arctic tundra now laying waste to our area. Mind you, this is still a poor substitute for exploring the real thing; it still takes four dimensions and proper human locomotion to enjoy all the sights and sounds the Spa City’s bourbon street has to offer.