April 2007

During the existence of Forgotten New York, which began in 1998, we’ve mourned the loss of several of New York’s grand old watering holes such as Flessel’s in College Point, Queens; Gage and Tollner in…

Your webmaster was strolling in Park Slope one day, in not quite the month of May, when I happened upon one of the remaining non-“gentrified” storefronts at 5th Avenue between Baltic…

“I’m in the mood for Easter everywhere,”once sang idiosyncratic “Arch-drude” British psychedelicist Julian Cope*, and so was your webmaster as he stormed the Bronx for what must have been the first…

Your webmaster and Park Slope have an ambiguous history. In the 1980s and on into the 1990s, several friends and a cousin lived within a few blocks radius, and I…

Well, your webmaster finally made the team picture after 29 ForgottenTours. Can you spot where I am?* As usual, despite sunny weather predicted all week, ForgottenTour Day turned out cloudy, chance…

On what turned out to be a cool, cloudy 4th of July, 2007 your webmaster invaded one of those Brooklyn neighborhoods that seems to have been caught between two more highly-publicized…

The other day I poked my head in Mary Beth’s office and there, on the wall, was a picture of Liberace. I remarked that Mr. Showmanship was so square, he was cool…

CONTINUED FROM EAST WILLIAMSBURG PART 1 As we’ve seen in East Williamsburg Part 1, the region east of downtown Williamsburg is an intriguing amalgamation of abandoned, crumbling hospitals, dog-crap-littered parks, varied and…

 New York is just not an alley town. While Boston has its Crab Alleys, Quaker Lanes and Primus Avenues, Philadelphia its Crooked Billet Streets, Black Horse and Elfreth’s Alleys, and…

Equal parts playground and wilderness, Kissena Park is bordered by Oak Avenue, Kissena Boulevard, 164th Street, and Booth Memorial Avenue (referred to rather comically on the Parks Department website as “Hemstead Turnpike”;…

April 1, 2007, didn’t fool 48 ForgottenFans…second-most ever on a ForgottenTour (the prize goes to the 56 who turned up for Tour 14 in Dumbo, October 2003)…who turned up for FNY’s jaunt…