Forgotten New York is in Association with the Greater Astoria Historical Society, a non-profit organization supported by the Long Island City community.
Hunters Point is a community in Queens on the edge — in more ways than one. It sits on the extreme western edge of the borough, just across Newtown Creek from Greenpoint (mystifyingly, both pedestrian crossings to Brooklyn were severed in the middle of the 20th Century) and can be said to be on the edge [...]
Categorized in: Neighborhoods Tagged with: Hunters Point Queens
Your webmaster never runs out of ForgottenMaterial. That’s how vast New York City is. Unfortunately, lately the bulldozers seem to be knocking down things faster than Forgotten New York can chronicle any of their historic or unusual aspects. Ideally, I’d have unlimited time to gad about town with a camera, but I am at a [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Signs Tagged with: drugstores Harper's
Cooper Square (Astor Place at 3rd and 4th Avenues), was named for industrialist and inventor Peter Cooper (1791-1883), the developer of the first practical steam engine. He helped build America’s iron and cable industries (partnering with Samuel Morse in laying the first trans-Atlantic cable), and was one of the first developers of gelatin made from [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Tagged with: Cooper Square McSorleys
Your webmaster will say it right away: I’m not a porno fan and have never bought a magazine, frequented the video shops or the theatres when the Deuce was in full putrescence. Not even the Sports Illustrated swim suit issue. Why not? Well, there’s that objectification of women thing, though many women have no problems [...]
Categorized in: Street Scenes Tagged with: 8th Avenue Hell's Kitchen Manhattan
Rowland Hussey Macy (1822-1877) was a Nantucket seaman aboard the Emily Morgan whaling ship at age 15, and while serving there he picked up at a port of call a red, five-pointed star tattoo. After a period of apprenticeship he opened four dry goods stores in the 1850s, all of which failed; undeterred, he moved [...]
Categorized in: Ads Forgotten Slices Tagged with: Macy's
Corridor parks…long, narrow strips of green that go on for block after block between two streets, are relatively rare in NYC. The Bronx has two lengthy ones on either side of Mosholu and Pelham Parkways, Kissena Corridor Park in Flushing and Fresh Meadows, and perhaps even Eastern and Ocean Parkways in Brooklyn can come under [...]
Categorized in: Neighborhoods Street Scenes Tagged with: Bay Ridge Brooklyn
Not only does Staten Island never make the NYC guidebooks, there might be parts of Staten Island that even Staten Islanders don’t know about. One of these neighborhoods is Park Hill, nestled along the Grymes foothills just south of Stapleton. Fewer Staten Islanders might remember that Park Hill is the former home of the National [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Neighborhoods Tagged with: NFL Park Hill Stapleton Vanderbilt
This past Saturday [August 11, 2007], FNY correspondent Christina Wilkinson was asked by NY Times reporter Monica Evanchik to help with a video segment for the paper’s website which will tentatively be entitled, “In the Shadow of the U.S. Open.” The piece will focus on the pristine condition of the U.S. Open Tennis Center, built [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Tagged with: Flushing Meadows theatres Trylon
There are some neighborhoods in NYC like Williamsburg, Greenpoint and the Lower East Side that are seemingly changing by the hour, if not the minute. There are others that are apparently changing more slowly — if not for the better — like Flushing and Astoria. And then there are the neighborhoods that look exactly the same [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Neighborhoods Tagged with: Carvel clock Ridgewood
As little as a dozen years ago [as of 2007] you’d never have thought that Brooklyn would become a rock music mecca. In just the past few years though, Venues like Warsaw, Pete’s Candy Store, Union Pool, Galapagos, Asterisk Art Project, The Lucky Cat, free103point9, Tommy’s Tavern, Uncle Paulie’s, the Glasslands, the Woodser, and the McCarren [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Neighborhoods Tagged with: Borough Park Grateful Dead
There’s a wide, 6-lane boulevard way out in eastern Queens recently renamed for a small town of about 14,000 in eastern Nassau. Settled by Welshman Robert Williams after he purchased land from the Matinecock Indians in 1648 and which, like Flushing in that era, became a center for the Quaker religion, Jericho was the home [...]
Categorized in: Walks Tagged with: Bellerose Queens Queens Village
ForgottenTours have been, for the past year and a half, typically held under threatening skies, but the weather for the scheduled Tour 31 on July 29, 2007 not only threatened, but delivered, forcing a move to the following Sunday, August 5th. It was perhaps the nicest day of the month so far and so, in a [...]
Categorized in: Neighborhoods Tours Tagged with: Douglaston Little Neck Queens
Your webmaster has written and spoken often about the sad state of affairs that overdevelopment has left us in, especially in Flushing. Every historic property in the city not under the protection of the somewhat flighty Landmarks Preservation Commission is under the gun from rapacious and greedy builders who, it seems, wish to erect a [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Tagged with: City Island
Is there anyplace more inviting than a classic railroad-car diner? It’s a matter of taste of course, in more ways than one. I’d eat in one every day, but my cholesterol is high enough as is. In future centuries, we’ll have figured out a way to make eating vegetables and incessant exercise unnecessary, but until [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Tagged with: diners
