Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C., is now visible on Google Maps.
Over the weekend, Google updated its satellite and street view imagery to show a newly painted stretch of 16th Street NW that leads to the White House. On June 5, the city painted the street art in huge yellow block letters. The blocks were renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza.
While Google Maps quickly relabeled the area as BLM Plaza, the mapping service was still using satellite and street view imagery from 2018. Apple Maps updated its maps with the slogan days after it was painted, The Verge noted on June 8.
And then for comparison, here’s what the freshly painted plaza on @Apple Maps looked like on June 10 (and had been updated a few days earlier, along with new labeling) pic.twitter.com/c0mHtdKWjE
— Sasha Lekach (@sashajol) June 15, 2020
As of Monday, Google Maps was showing the street mural.
Other Black Lives Matter street murals appeared on streets in Oakland, Sacramento, Dallas, and San Francisco over the weekend. Both Google and Apple haven’t updated those San Francisco blocks yet.
UPDATE: June 15, 2020, 11:57 a.m. UTC Google Maps responded about the new imagery on the map and on Google Earth. In an email statement a Google spokesperson said, “We constantly refresh our satellite and aerial imagery as it becomes available to provide people with the most up-to-date map possible.”