50 Pictures Showing The Same Place Decades Apart, Revealing How Time Changes Everything

Have you ever felt like time is moving a little too fast? The worst thing about it is when you feel stuck—not moving that much in life—but time keeps going and everything changes, while you haven’t.

And so, you look around and notice things don’t look the way they used to, even though it seems like nothing has changed that much. Well, every little change that time brings results in a big difference when comparison is applied. Today, let’s do that with certain places—taking a peek at how they looked in the past and how they looked a little later.

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#1 The Golden Cross Inn, Coventry. 1819 vs. Now

#2 Seattle (Wa, USA) Before And After Viaduct Removal

#3 Chichen Itza 1892 And Now

You probably know as the saying goes – time changes things. Or time heals things, depending on the context. Well, you get the gist of it.

Usually, people hear this phrase said to them when they experience loss, heartbreak, disappointment, or trauma. When saying this, people mean that with time the feelings about the situation will get easier, or at least the feelings will mutate in a way that will hurt in a different, more survivable way.

#4 The Berlin Wall Fell 31 Years Ago Today!

#5 The Same Mall Today And From 1984

#6 Ancient Greece Before And After Excavation

But is time actually a healer? Well, the answer is complicated. Essentially, time itself does not have the ability to heal, but the other things that come with it, like changes, and experiences can help with it.

As some specialists say time equates to opportunity. Basically, it all depends on how/if a person uses the opportunities the time presents to move on, to shape their future. For example, one person shielding themselves from the rest of the world and the other engaging in community (friends, family, and people like that) will result in different outcomes, even if they are trying to move from a relatively similar thing.

#7 Milan, Italy 1950s And 2021

#8 Manhattan, 1931 To 2018

#9 Abandoned Restaurant In Petrópolis, Brazil (1960’s And 2013)

It should be noted that these two aforementioned ways aren’t the only ways a person can react to something that crushes them—they were just two of the simplest examples. As it always is: to each their own.

Of course, in some cases, there are things that prevent people from letting themselves be healed by time and opportunities. Whether it’s prolonged grief or other mental illnesses, refusal to let go, or denial—there can be plenty of underlying reasons why time isn’t such an effective medicine. And so, time moves on, but these people don’t.

#10 1955-2021. Vilnius, Lithuania

#11 Early Los Angeles Compared To 2001

#12 The Curecanti Needle, Black Canyon, Colorado, 1880s vs. 2023

The thing is that you cannot stop time from moving, no matter how much you want to. It just keeps going on, sometimes slowly, and sometimes faster. In fact, sometimes you just don’t even feel how fast it goes and things change along with it, while you feel the same.

In order to appreciate how time can change things, today we’ve gathered a list of pictures that show just that. Here, you will find places as they looked in the past and then how they looked a little later, showing how time and certain events that came with it altered them.

#13 The Flatiron Building, New York (1917 And 2012)

#14 Stonehenge: 1877 And 2019

#15 Hong Kong’s Kowloon Peninsula 1964 – 2016

In our opinion, such comparisons are perfect examples of all the things we talked about today—how time heals, or might not, and how change keeps happening whether we like it or not.

After all, sometimes it isn’t easy to wrap your head around this stuff, but pictures like these can help. Or, they might just send you spiraling even more. And still, they’re pretty interesting to look at, aren’t they? Share your takes on this topic with us in the comments!

#16 Lincoln Memorial 1922-2016

#17 My Mom And I Sitting On The Stoop Of The Bronx House That’s Been In Our Family For 100 Years, Recreating A Photo Of My Great Aunt And Great-Great Grandmother Taken In The ’40s

#18 Singapore, 1991 vs. 2018

#19 Trains At Harper’s Ferry, Wv In 1947 And 2021. The 1947 Image Taken By Ed Wittekind, 2021 Image Shot By Me In The Same Exact Spot

#20 Edinburgh, Scotland

#21 A Former Public Bath In Wuppertal, Germany, Now A Brewery And Beer Hall. 1993 vs. 2019

#22 Charlotte, Nc: Unsure Of The Year, But I Found What Appeared To Be A Dirt Track Near My Workplace On Google Maps. I Did Some Research And Went To Check It Out