If you've spent any amount of time in Portland over the past 10 years, you have noticed that the largest city in Maine has been in the midst of rapid development. Old businesses closing shop to be replaced by new modern buildings. More and more hotels constructed as an influx of tourists have grown year after year and some things that have been here for years, just getting modern makeovers.

Just looking around the peninsula or Portland today and you'll see cranes everywhere building new hotels, apartment and condo complexes and office spaces. One of those buildings when completed, will be the tallest building at a height of 18 stories.

The development is happening so fast that sometimes you can forget what used to be where these new developments now stand. Luckily we live in a time when we have our very own time machine that we can use to go back and see what used to be on that plot of land before it was torn down in favor of new development.

We looked back through the time machine that is Google Street View as far back as 2007, the year that the Google Street View car came through Portland to map it out with photos.

Here are five different locations in Portland showing what they looked like then and what they look like now. In a lot of cases, the transformation is amazing.

Before and After: The Development of Portland, ME

LOOK: Famous Historic Homes in Every State

 

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