About the Aerial Photograph Collection
Welcome to the Intranet site for viewing Westchester County’s Historical Aerial
Photograph Collection! This website is a joint endeavor of the Departments of Planning
and Information Technology to preserve over 6,000 valuable photographs and make
them more accessible to the public for research and planning.
These black & white photographs were taken from airplanes flying over the county’s
changing 20th century landscape between 1925 and 1995. To begin your exploration, go to the
Aerial Photos Viewer
and select the flight year from the operational list of your reaearch
interest from the left panel. See the
Help
page for complete instructions on using the photo viewer.
The aerial photographs were produced by several firms during 13 separate missions,
generally during winter or early spring to best capture the topography. They were
made using different cameras and settings and from varying heights. Often there
were overlapping pictures. Each flight’s results were then matched to an Index Map
that indicated the particular paths flown. See the
Details
page for specific information regarding each fly-over.
Currently, there are thirteen aerial photograph sets available for the years 1925/26,
1940, 1947, 1954, 1960,
1965, 1970, 1976. 1980, 1986, 1990 and 1995. The earliest photographs
taken during 1925/1926 and those from 1976 are particularly rich in detail.
Go to Application