For just one frame of Google’s Street View for Charleston Road in Mountain View, we are given a completely unprecedented and unique glimpse inside the operation, as the camera is switched on inside the Street View Batcave.

Just like Batman’s underground lair, this warehouse appears to be the base for the whole operation. Panning around, you’ll find the dimly lit room¹ is filled in every direction with dozens and dozens of fully loaded camera cars, some featuring the older camera-only mounts, and others with the newer 3D laser mounts.

Other than the camera cars, there are several other fascinating things to see here, including this setup up of 9 LCD monitors mounted around a couple of old car seats, which would act like a 3D VR room. Is this for checking cameras? Reviewing recorded material? Or live monitoring of the drivers’ progress?

Also of note around the garage are some support vans, lots of bits of computer junk and, in an image captured immediately outside the building, several mysterious black vehicles.

Thanks to VGT.

Steve Prefontaine. His is a name synonymous with running; a name all of your running-junky friends are sure to be familiar with.¹ In 1975, at the time he was struck and killed in a car accident, he held every U.S. track record from 2,000 to 10,000 meters. When he was dead-out sprinting there seemed to be flames coming from his Nikes. In fact, he was the first athlete to endorse Nike.²

Prefontaine, lovingly referred to as Pre by those that knew him and us that admire his abilities, so enamoured the sports world that there are many places that bear his name in memorial. Here are just a few of the memorial locations set up in and around the state of Oregon, including Hayward Field, which is the location of the annual Pre Classic, due to take place this Sunday, June 7th.

Prefontaine Memorial Park with Pre Rock

“Prefontaine Memorial Park” could be a contender for The World’s Smallest Park, as it consists of not much more than one rock that stands near the site of Pre’s car accident. The stone memorial commonly known as “Pre Rock” bears a plaque that tells the story of Prefontaine’s death.

During the night on May 30, 1975, Pre swerved his 1973 Gold MG to avoid hitting an oncoming car. By the time emergency services had arrived, Pre was dead. Pre Rock is constantly covered in wreaths, notes, and U.S. flags; as we can see in this Streetview image.³

Pre’s Trail

When Pre competed in Europe he came to appreciate the style and terrain of their cross-country courses, and wanted a similar experience for Tracktown USA⁴ runners. When he returned, he won over Eugene city officials to the idea who worked with U of O track coach Bill Bowerman to design and build it, with the trailhead being just south of Autzen Stadium in Alton Baker Park.

Pre’s Trail Western Trailhead / Eastern Trailhead

The trail had yet to be built at the time of Pre’s death. However, the city was able to finish the 5.5km trail within four months, just in time to be used in a memorial run that would see over five hundred runners come out to remember their friend.

Steve Prefontaine Memorial Hall

When guests arrive at the Nike Campus at One Bowerman Drive in Beaverton, Oregon they are ushered into Steve Prefontaine Hall. Pre is often referred to as the “soul of Nike” by founder Phil Knight because of his commitment to running and his intense desire to always come out on top. Within the Hall are many of Nike’s newest developments, as well as individual pieces of memorabilia of Pre’s and many other athletes that have worked with the company in the past.

Several movies have been made chronicling Steve Prefontaine’s life, and Hayward Field played itself in each of them.

You can also check out the the Prefontaine Memorial at the Coos Bay Visitor Center. Each year over 1,000 runners compete in the Prefontaine Memorial Run held there in his hometown.

Obscure geography trivia time: where would you find the steepest street in the world?

You might guess San Francisco. If you’re a Guinness Book of Records-reading smart alec, you might say New Zealand. As it turns out, you’d be wrong – probably. In fact, nobody seems quite sure which is the world’s steepest, and then there’s the problem of what exactly counts as a street anyway.

But we’ve looked into it, got out protractors out, and can now reveal the not-quite-scientifically-verified Google Sightseeing Top Six World’s Steepest Streets! And happily, the intrepid Street View car has struggled its way up (or down) all of them. Here they are, in reverse order:

6) Dornbush Street, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

In the East Hills area of the city, this quiet-looking residential street has been surveyed at a 31.98% grade – that’s a 17.7° slope. The Street View car missed out one section of the steepest part, which is one-way in the downhill direction. Check out the heavy-duty concrete staircase.

5) Maria Avenue, Spring Valley, California

Here’s a prime example of the “We’ve got a grid system and we’re damn well going to stick to it” school of city planning. Google’s Terrain view shows how the north-south street pattern has been laid out with no regard whatsoever to the steep contours – in fact you have to wonder whether the planners had ever even visited the site!

Maria Avenue marches straight up the southern slope of Dictionary Hill, attaining a surveyed grade of 32% (17.7°) just north of Chestnut Street. This section of road seems to be paved with concrete, and is cut off from the section above: Street View leaps straight across the gap, missing out this part of the road. The next block to the east would have been even steeper – Buena Vista Avenue is shown on the street map, but the builders understandably admitted defeat there.

4) Baxter Street and Fargo Street, Los Angeles, California

We’ll call this one a tie. These two streets are right next to one another in the Silver Lake district of LA, and both have been measured at 32%, but they get the nod over Maria Avenue on account of being altogether more exciting.

Baxter Street goes up and up and up… but then it goes down almost as steeply, giving the alarming impression that you’re about to drive off a cliff as you approach the summit.

Fargo Street is much shorter – only one block – but that’s plenty long enough for the cyclists who enter the annual Fargo Street Hill Climb. In 2008 one nutter rode up it 101 times in one day.

3) Eldred Street, Los Angeles, California

Just pipping Baxter and Fargo, with a 33% (18.3°) grade at its topmost end, LA’s steepest is in the Highland Park area. It rises 67m over only 400m, which presents some interesting challenges for its residents, according to an entertaining LA Times article.

2) Baldwin Street, Dunedin, New Zealand

Despite being listed in the Guinness Book of Records (and having that sign at the bottom), Baldwin Street doesn’t make the top slot. True, the top section attains an impressive 35% (19.3°) grade; true, it’s quite a slog walking up, even with the steps at the side¹; and true, sliding down it in a wheelie bin is a very bad idea; but it’s not the steepest. Unless anyone else knows better, the winner is…

1) Canton Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

The signs at the top say “Do Not Enter”, and in slippery conditions you’d do well to heed them. Canton Avenue, a short cobbled street in Pittsburgh’s Beechview neighbourhood attains a whopping 37%, or 20.3°, gradient, making it the steepest public road in the United States – and, quite possibly, the world. This YouTube video shows what happens when you try and cycle up it, and this article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has more photos, giving an idea what it’s like to live there in winter. You can bet the residents of this house at the bottom of the hill are quite glad of that crash barrier out the front.

Honourable mentions

Here are a few other contenders that, for various reasons, didn’t quite “make the grade”…

West 28th Street, San Pedro, Los Angeles

Apparently this is officially the steepest LA street, at 33.3% (18.4°, just pipping Eldred), but looking at it on Street View, the steep portion is pathetically short. Next!

Ffordd Pen Llech, Harlech, Wales

This lane, said to be the steepest in Britain, plunges down the side of the steep hill topped by Harlech Castle. Sadly, Street View hasn’t reached rural north Wales yet, but there is high-resolution aerial imagery. The sign at the top claims it to be a 40% (21.8°) slope, but that seems dubious. And in any case, look at the sign just below the gradient warning: “Anaddas i fodur”. Unsuitable for motors. Disqualified on a technicality…

Waipio Valley Road, Hawaii

Now we’re talking: 45% gradient, or 24.2° – just look at those contour lines! Sadly, although this potential record-breaker is paved, it is restricted to 4WD vehicles – and in any case, it’s out in the wilds of the north of the Big Island, and with no houses on it you can hardly call this one a street. Still, it looks like quite a drive, judging by the pictures on this page.

Warning: This post contains partial nudity that you may not deem suitable for the workplace or for children.

Update: As expected this image has been quickly removed by Google. For those who feel compelled to have a closer look, here’s a screenshot.

Unfortunately for this gentleman in Barcelona, he has chosen to take a pee by the side of the road just as the Google Street View car was passing.

What sets this man apart from others who have done the same, is that instead of turning his back on the passing cars, he foolishly chose to relieve himself whilst facing the street.

Luckily for him, Google’s face-blurring technology was working on this occasion, but unluckily for us, his penis remains completely un-blurred. If you think it looks a little small from here, then you can actually zoom in quite a lot closer (if you dare).

We’ve previously seen naked breasts, bums, and blurry lady-bits on Google Street View, as well as many different men (and even a woman) who have been caught taking a leak, but we never imagined we would ever see urination in such explicit detail.¹

I’m not sure about you dear reader², but I for one hope that we never have to see anyone captured, um… dropping the kids off at the pool.

One of the very first locations posted on Google Sightseeing back in 2005 was Niagara Falls. Just a few miles away, though, is another site that the local tourist board is probably rather less proud of. In the late 1970s, the neighbourhood of Love Canal was at the centre of a huge public health scandal, after it emerged that it had been built on top of a landfill containing 21,000 tons of toxic waste, which subsequently began to leak.

The canal itself¹ dates back to the 1890s: an abortive attempt to bypass Niagara Falls that barely got started before funding ran out. As the surrounding town grew, the abandoned excavations were used to dump first municipal waste and then, by the 1940s, 55-gallon drums of waste from a nearby chemical factory. Once it was full, it was covered over with clay and soil.

Unfortunately, around this time, local officials were looking for a nice big open space to build new schools. You can see where this is going, can’t you? As well as two schools, hundreds of houses were also constructed right on top of a toxic time bomb. Residents began to notice health problems, and all manner of gunk oozing out of the ground, and eventually the government realised something was up and evacuated the area.

Today, the canal site looks fairly innocuous: the houses and school in the central area were demolished, leaving a green field (surrounded by a 2.4 metre barbed wire fence) and a treatment plant that was built to stop contaminated groundwater escaping.

Just to the west, you can still see the residential roads and the foundations of houses that were demolished.

Street View reveals an eerily deserted scene, with cracked tarmac, faded street signs, and weeds taking over the vacant plots. On the day the Street View car came by, there were some suitably apocalyptic-looking black clouds to add to the atmosphere.

East of the canal, most houses are gone but it looks as though a few stubborn folks have stayed put. It seems quite a pleasant wooded neighbourhood, if you can ignore what’s under your feet.

In many places nearby, new houses have actually been built. Just a few yards from the footprints of demolished homes, and overlooking the heart of the dump site, lies a seemingly brand-new development of apartments; and further north, hundreds of homes surround the site of the 93rd Street school, one of the two that were closed due to contamination.

Love Canal wasn’t the only American community to fall victim to chemical contamination around this time. The town of Times Beach, Missouri, was evacuated and totally wiped off the map in the early 1980s after it was discovered that oil sprayed on dirt roads to keep the dust down was chock-full of dioxins – among the most toxic chemicals in existence. Today, the area is a state park, but you can still clearly see the lines of the streets.

Read more about Love Canal and Times Beach at Wikipedia.