Leo just blogged about A9.com‘s new “Block View” feature for their Yellow Pages and so I just had to try it out.

On their “How we did it” page they note that only a few major cities have been covered, but luckily for me, Atlanta’s one of them and I still remember a few things about Atlanta. I did a search for “varsity restaurant” and it came back with a list of possible hits, of which this one seemed like the best. Alas, there’s no block view image for the world’s largest drive-in, so I tried again with a search for “georgia tech” and landed here. This entry does have a block view image associated with it; now, for the moment of truth.

I recognized from the picture that we’re standing at the corner of North Avenue and that exit ramp that comes off of I-85 South, so I started clicking the little “Walk Right” navigation arrows to “move” to the right. Sure enough, I’m walking up North Avenue towards the Varsity; and after a few more steps, the Varsity’s parking lot comes into view! I only wish I could look “up” at this point, since you can’t see the Varsity’s big marquee sign out front. (If I walk a little further up the street, I can even see that the Subway restaurant at the corner of Spring Street is still there…)

I’m not exactly sure how useful this will be, in practice. If you’re already familiar with the area and some of the surrounding landmarks, as I was when “looking” for the Varsity, I can see how it would help you pinpoint the location of a business and perhaps what its storefront looks like in context. I’m not sure it would be quite as useful to me if I were trying to locate a business in an unfamiliar place, however.

But still, it’s way cool, isn’t it?