Hanging around this property in Atlanta, Georgia, a group of young men appear entirely unconcerned about the fire that’s blazing away on their porch.

On closer inspection we can see that this guy is on the phone – so perhaps he’s calling the fire department? Although if he is, then he doesn’t look overly concerned.

The fire isn’t that big however, so why aren’t they trying to put it out? And what is it that’s burning up there anyway?

Thanks to Syl.

Today we’ll explore some of the world’s most famous recording studios, starting with Sun Studio in Memphis. I love this Street View with the neon signs glowing!

Perhaps best known as the location of Elvis Presley’s early recordings, the studio was also used by many rock-n-roll greats including Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison and Jerry Lee Lewis. The building reopened in 1987 as a functioning studio and museum, appearing soon after that in the U2 film Rattle and Hum.

Speaking of U2, their first three albums were recorded at Windmill Lane Studios in Dublin. While the studio has moved, the location remains a site of pilgrimage for devoted fans who cover the walls with graffiti, visible on Live Maps:

One of the more unique studios in the world is the Astoria studio, found in a houseboat on the River Thames west of London.

Built in 1911, and originally designed to house an entire orchestra, the boat is currently owned by Dave Gilmour and parts of Pink Floyd’s two most recent albums were recorded there.

Most of Prince’s albums from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s were recorded at the now-defunct studio that shared a name with a song and record label: Paisley Park.

While we’ve already visited the Abbey Road zebra crossing on Google Sightseeing, we didn’t look at the actual studio:

Home to the vast majority of The Beatles’ recording sessions, these studios have since hosted a Who’s Who of modern rock, pop and classical music, from Radiohead to the Spice Girls. The wall outside Abbey Road Studios is also covered in graffiti from music fans, though it’s not visible on either Google or Live Maps.

From 1959 to 1971, Motown Records put more than 110 songs into the Top 10 – the majority of them were recorded at Hitsville USA, a pair of Detroit buildings that housed the label’s studios and administrative offices.

The label moved to Los Angeles in 1972, but the buildings have served as a popular museum since 1985.

And finally we fly to Berlin to see the Hansa Tonstudios.

Perhaps most famous for David Bowie’s Low and Heroes albums, many artists have taken residence there seeking inspiration from the culture and history of East and West Berlin.

Where was your favourite album recorded?

Thanks to Lianachan, Stephen Jackson, Martin S., 433 and Stephen LaMora.

This is the second in an occasional series where we’ll be travelling to some of the world’s most interesting abandoned places.

Fuelled by the ancient myth of the lost continent of Atlantis, underwater cities have always been the subject of much fascination.

Of course in real life small towns and villages are sometimes subsumed beneath changing bodies of water, but somewhat surprisingly, Google’s imagery has managed to capture at least three underwater towns which were all handily above water at the time.¹

St. Thomas, Nevada

Back in 1871, the small town of St. Thomas, Nevada (Wikipedia) was first abandoned by the Mormons, after a shift in the state line severely altered their tax liability.

The people who claimed the empty properties would eventually be forced to leave themselves, thanks to the construction of the Hoover Dam and the creation of Lake Mead, which even today is the largest man-made lake and reservoir in the United States.

The Hoover Dam was completed in 1935, and just three years later the last resident of St. Thomas was forced to leave by the rising waters of Lake Mead. Here we can still see the outline of the town’s school, which like several other properties becomes visible when the reservoir is low.

Adaminaby, Australia

Adaminaby (Wikipedia) is a town near Australia’s Snowy Mountains, New South Wales, which has the distinction of being one of the highest towns in Australia², and a very popular place from which to take fishing trips to nearby Lake Eucumbene.

On Street View we can see The Big Trout that graces the town centre in recognition of fishing’s importance here.

This is strange though, as it was the creation of Lake Eucumbene that forced all of the residents to have to abandon the original town…

In April 2007 the ongoing drought³ in this region brought the water level so low that Old Adaminaby began to re-appear, 50 years after it had been flooded as part of the Snowy Mountains Scheme hydro-electricity project.

Unfortunately the structures themselves are only faintly visible from up here, but elsewhere on the shores are other more prominent ruins that are also becoming exposed.

(Try turning on the photos option on Google Maps to see lots of great ground-level photos from the Panaramio Google Earth layer.)

Epecuén, Argentina

In contrast to these tales of towns being submerged in the name of progress, sometimes nature just takes its course. From about 1920 the water level of Argentina’s lake Epecuén rose steadily, and in 1978 the locals put earth and stone defences in place to try and protect their village.

These defences held back the water until November 10th 1985, when it finally broke through and flooded the village four metres deep. Here we can see the various buildings jutting from the surface of the lake.

Judging by the number of photographs available online, it seems that Epecuén is a popular destination for photographers, so there’s loads of ground-level photo sets to see – including this rather nice one on Flickr.

Thanks to Claude Warren and kjfitz.

If you didn’t already know, Valentine’s Day is imminent, so if you’ve not got that special someone a gift yet you better get on with it!

Perhaps we can help with some Google Earth sights around the globe?

In LA, where just a standard rectangular swimming pool isn’t enough, you need to show love for your other half by building them a heart-shaped swimming pool.

Or take a walk down the aptly-named Cupid Row in San Bruno to these two streets, which together form a perfect heart shape. I wonder if the any of the houses are for sale?

But if you can’t afford a new gaff, how about writing your beloved a simple message of love?

We’re still in California, where a field displays the simple message of “I (heart) U”. Presumably all the local men have at some point claimed responsibility for the declaration¹.

On a German beach near Warnemündethere, there’s a message of love which reads “Andrea möchtest du mich …”. Jenni from Google Sightseeing Deutsch has translated this as “Andrea, would you like to … me”, suggesting that the missing work (obscured by an unhelpful cloud) is “heiraten” (marry). ²

To seal the deal our suitor has even added a large love heart.

Lastly, we visit a packed Brighton seafront for a building promotes Love and Peace in one giant message.

Google Sightseeing wishes you all a happy Valentine’s Day, however you’re spending it! For more romance, we’ve previously visited various other heart-shaped things and heart pools.

Thanks to i-cube, Catherine, PatrickSalsbury, 89shelby, Marc Cohen, Meigel and Alexei.

NASA’s first visitor centre, and one of the world’s largest public collections of space bits is the U.S. Space and Rocket Center near Huntsville, AL.

The main building houses hundreds of space-related artefacts, including bits of real moon rock and the remains of a space monkey, but luckily the best sights are too large to squeeze inside the building and have to be displayed outside¹.

Welcoming you to the centre is an A-12 Blackbird which, as I’m sure you know, isn’t a spacecraft, it’s a plane. But, it’s a very cool plane, so we’ll let them off².

Also noticeable from the entrance is the massive Saturn V, the rocket design that launched NASA’s Apollo and Skylab missions.

However, like the Blackbird, this isn’t a spacecraft; it’s just a full-size mock-up produced especially for the park.

Hoping to actually see some real space things, we come to another Saturn V, this time lying down.

Now this is (sort of) the real deal. Although all three stages come from separate test models not destined for flight, it does have all the inner workings and has thus been awarded the prestigious status of a US national monument.

Alongside Saturn V stands a smaller rocket, Saturn I, which was NASA’s first dedicated “space launcher”.

Again, this particular rocket was never launched, and like the Saturn V is actually a mish-mash of test models. Someone who clearly knows too much about space rockets complains that the booster is even painted incorrectly: “the roll pattern on the fins is also off, as the black-white boundary should be horizontal to the ground an[d] bisecting the root edge of the fins.” Of course we all noticed that glaring error.

Around the other side of the building we find the only “full stack” space shuttle display in the US.

The empty steel model, known as “Pathfinder”, was constructed as an simple weight for testing cranes and other support equipment. It was given the NASA livery in Japan, where it spent some time at the “Great Space Shuttle Exposition” of 1984.

It then returned to America to where we see it now, sitting atop two prototype booster casings which never went into production.

So that was the U.S. Space and Rocket Center, where we can see precisely zero rockets that have ever actually been into space!