Forgotten New York is in Association with the Greater Astoria Historical Society, a non-profit organization supported by the Long Island City community.
Your webmaster has worked in the proximity of 6th Avenue off and on for years, in hole-in-the-wall Russian type shops, defunct art schools, college textbook sweatshops, gardening magazine publishers, you name it. I’ve seen 6th, between 23rd and 29th Streets, convert from phonograph needle wholesalers, mom and pop delis and junk sales to a phalanx [...]
Categorized in: Street Scenes Tagged with: Chelsea Madison Square Manhattan
Continued from Part 2 As Beatle Paul would often say, we’d like to carry on now with five more stations of Staten Island Rapid Transit, or Staten Island railway, as it’s called now, as it dawned on the MTA after all these years that it isn’t really all that rapid. Your webmaster has been fascinated with [...]
Categorized in: Neighborhoods Subways & Trains Tagged with: Bay Terrace Great Kills Staten Island
CONTINUED FROM PART 1 Saturday, January 27, 2007 – The Staten Island Railway cannot be called an official subway, even though it uses modified subway cars; it only travels through a short stretch of tunnel. It’s not a suburban railroad – Staten Island has been part of New York City since 1898. And it’s certainly not a rural railroad, though you’ll [...]
Categorized in: Neighborhoods Subways & Trains
Now that another Queens landmark, the 1885 Hackett Building, is about to have a premature date with the wrecking ball in the Bloombergian Era of Development, I thought I’d walk the blocks where it held forth for so long and meet its friends at the wake. Jackson Avenue between Vernon Boulevard and Queens plaza is spacious, [...]
Categorized in: Street Scenes Tagged with: Hunters Point Queens
Got to admit that I’m a little bit confused… I set out to do a study of the stations of the Staten Island Railway, which I prefer to call its old name, Staten Island Rapid Transit (with 20-minute headways on the weekends, though, it’s not exactly rapid then.) To do this, I set about walking, in [...]
Categorized in: Subways & Trains Tagged with: Clfton Grasmere St. George Stapleton Staten Island Tompkinsville
This week I’m doing a different kind of Forgotten New York page in that I’m not presenting any historic obscurities, overlooked neighborhoods, or ignored aspects of NYC physiognomy. No, I’m just going to show my neighborhood — the way I found it when I first moved in, and what it’s becoming. Young Flushing Queens [...]
Categorized in: Neighborhoods
Whenever I lead a ForgottenTour through a cemetery (like Green-Wood Cemetery, Tour 24) I always tell people to peek in the windows of the mausolea. More often than not, you’ll get the ring in the Cracker Jack box — a gorgeous stained-glass panel depicting a religious scene…most of the time, but not always. The fascinating [...]
Categorized in: Cemeteries Tagged with: Flushing Queens
So, I was stumbling around Fort Greene one 50-degree afternoon in November and I thought I should get in some photography because the winter blasts were soon to come. As I write this on January 6th, 2007, we’re expecting 70 degrees (which we got, incidentally). I found myself on South Portland Avenue and remembered that [...]
Categorized in: Street Scenes Tagged with: Brooklyn Fort Greene
I don’t do a whole lot of interiors. Usually, that’s because when I enter anywhere with a camera, I’m quickly given the bum’s rush. For over four years, though, I rode on some over 100-year-old artifacts in one of New York City’s most storied interiors…Macy’s. As far as I know, the World’s Biggest Store, which has been in [...]
Categorized in: Street Scenes Tagged with: Herald Square Macy's Manhattan
In a city that routinely discards its history, you will sometimes find it in overlooked alleys that are no more than modern passageways under bridge ramps, or service lanes providing access for garbage pickup. New York City has obliterated many of its alleys, most of which were concentrated Downtown and on the lower east side. [...]
