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Comment by S53Vflnr4n | Hacker News Reader

Call me crazy but when I rent a condo, I try google street maps and go back in history and if I am lucky I get to see the construction phase. That will give an idea about how thick the concrete and the overall structure is. Another way is to look at the balconies. The floor will be as thick as balconies. The walls are a hit or miss. But if you knock on them and press your ears you can get some idea. Apartments near to a garbage chute or elevator will be noisy if not properly soundproofed.

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I feel like this is why we're on HN for :P

Where do you find the button for viewing the history of street view? Is it on the normal street view interface, or do you have to use an additional service/hackery?

Top left corner, the box with the address of the place you're looking at. Its bottom line is a clock icon and "Street View". Click on it and you get a slider with the available pictures. Place the slide on a date and click the thumbnail image to update the main view.

If there is no clock icon, there is no history for that location.

This sounds like utter nonsense.

I've lived in several high rises here in NYC and 99% of the difference in the quiet ones is not stuff that you'd see from street view.

Things like sound deadening underlayment and wall insulation, floorplans designed so that quieter rooms like a bedroom aren't next to louder ones like a living room.

I know HN is full of experts and their field but this is a stretch past stretches. No idea what kind if Rain Man engineer could tell you how quiet an apartment will be from street views.

The way you tell if a place is quiet is the reviews mostly. People like privacy, one of the easiest complaints to find is "feel like I hear everything my neighbors do"

That's a neat idea! Although the last three places I've lived have been over eighty years old. I guess when you get that far back in time, you can usually assume that the building is pretty darn solid.

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