Forgotten New York is in Association with the Greater Astoria Historical Society, a non-profit organization supported by the Long Island City community.
Cord Meyer Jr. (1854-1910) was the original developer of Elmhurst and Forest Hills. In 1893 Meyer, a successful banker and lawyer, purchased acreage in what was then called Newtown from British retail magnate Samuel Lord of Lord & Taylor fame and proceeded to lay out a street pattern that still exists today, built utilities and [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Neighborhoods Tagged with: Forest Hills Queens
Mike Tyson wears a Mao tattoo. Thousands wear T-shirts depicting Che Guevara. (Dozens wear the Forgotten NY T-Shirt). Communist ideology has produced totalitarian governments that enslaved and murdered millions throughout the decades, but there are still people who keep the dream hanging on. Ah well. FNY isn’t a political site; Lord knows we have a lot of [...]
Categorized in: Signs Tagged with: Allerton Bronx Manhattan Upper West Side
In a move that caught your webmaster as something of a surprise, the “new” PATH terminal that was constructed in 2003 at Church and Dey Streets at the edge of Ground Zero was quietly closed in June 2007 and, at present, is being razed to make way for the new multibillion-dollar PATH station due to [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Tagged with: PATH
Hello and welcome to the first ForgottenSlice. It’s a new strategy on your webmaster’s part not only to post more often during the week, but perhaps to get more opinionated than I allow myself on regular Forgotten NY pages. I have always envied NYC sites like a Gothamist, or the old Gowanus Lounge, or like [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Tagged with: Brooklyn Greenpoint
Before the 1820s or so, New York City was pretty much confined to the area south of City Hall and indeed, City Hall was left unfinished on its north side since no one believed the city would ever extend north of that. Manhattan Island was dotted with hamlets and small villages, connected by roads like the [...]
Categorized in: Neighborhoods Tagged with: Manhattan Manhattanville
Things took a turn for the bizarre in Maspeth when, after a July 1st, 2007 rally calling for the city takeover of St. Saviour’s Church to create a public park that would preserve the structure and add much-needed green space to the neighborhood…the property’s developer, Maspeth Development LLC, sent in the chainsaws and cut down [...]
Categorized in: Street Scenes Tagged with: Maspeth Queens st. Saviour's Church
Your webmaster has never been an oceangoer, beach comber or even gone fishing, despite my admiration of mermaids and crab cakes. New York is nearly completely surrounded by water, however, and as Herman Melville observed in Chapter 1 of Moby-Dick, there’s a pull to the shoreline…as in going down to the shore, just to look [...]
Categorized in: You'd Never Believe You're in NYC
