Forgotten New York is in Association with the Greater Astoria Historical Society, a non-profit organization supported by the Long Island City community.
A quick look at a map of southeastern Brooklyn reveals a nearly unbroken grid of unrelenting monotony, as city planners slavishly copied the Manhattan grid here and in most of Brooklyn. We’re in, or near, the old Kings County town of Flatlands, which describes things nearly perfectly — making the terrain ripe for a gridiron development. Hilly [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Neighborhoods Tagged with: Brooklyn Midwood
The Astoria el, which runs up 31st Street from Queens Plaza to just short of Ditmars Boulevard and carries the N train and the soon to be retired W (the Q will take its place, I’m told), alternates between a busy, bustling neighborhood mecca with newsstands and restaurants and a forbidding demimonde of the detritus of [...]
Categorized in: Neighborhoods Tagged with: Astoria Queens
The western Bronx consists of a chain of high hills and valleys arrayed on the eastern banks of the Harlem River, heavily urbanized now, but formerly home to wealthy estates and thickly wooded meadows where you wouldn’t be surprised to hear ‘tally-ho’ as the hounds pursued hapless foxes, and horse-drawn carriages traveled the rare cobblestoned [...]
Categorized in: Neighborhoods Tagged with: Bronx High Bridge
As I mentioned at on FNY’s Midwood slice, “southeastern Brooklyn reveals an unbroken grid of unrelenting monotony.” Still, between about 1968 (when I first jumped on a bike and began exploring Brooklyn from my Bay Ridge home) and 1993, when I moved to fab Flushing, it was MY unbroken grid, and I fully employed it [...]
Categorized in: Neighborhoods Tagged with: Brooklyn East Flatbush Wyckoff House
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Signs Tagged with: Astoria Queens
Those of you who have followed FNY for a long time know about my predilection for lampposts — an affinity I am hard pressed to explain. I do know I have been a fan of NYC lampposts, and by extrapolation stoplights, fire hydrants, street signs, and other ancillary materials, nearly since birth. Their lore and history [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Street Lamps Tagged with: Queens Sunnyside
I happen to be involved in one capacity or the other with both the Greater Astoria Historical Society and the Newtown Historical Society, both concerned with the preservation of the legacies of areas in western Queens, architectural and otherwise. Both meet in the same building, a funeral parlor on Broadway in Astoria; after periodic meetings there break up, if [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Tagged with: Astoria Queens
General Motors’ so-called “new-look” “fishbowl” buses were introduced in 1959 and almost immediately made a, er, splash on NYC streets, with selected routes getting them the very next year. The “fishbowl” moniker came from their large front windows, which bowed out and allowed a good look at the driver. The interiors were a departure from the [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices
An acquaintance of mine, a ForgottenFan, recently complained in her blog entry about slow walkers in NYC, and the impositions they put on most other people in NYC, who like to walk fast — on the way to jobs, meetings, dates, making more money, and whatever New Yorkers walk fast in order to reach. I’ve [...]
Categorized in: Ads Signs Tagged with: Bronx Brooklyn Manhattan painted signs telephone exchanges
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Tagged with: Chelsea Flatiron Manhattan
So today, FNY is concluding its Myrtle Avenue survey, covering the five miles the road spans between downtown Brooklyn and Richmond Hill. I often walk NYC’s lengthy avenues from beginning to end, since I enjoy the contrasts along the way. In 1999 my first such walk was the length of the Bronx’ Grand Concourse — [...]
Categorized in: Neighborhoods Roads Tagged with: Glendale Queens Richond Hill
Continuing FNY’s Myrtle Avenue walk this week we rather abruptly cross into Queens and two relatively stable, peaceful neighborhoods, Ridgewood and Glendale. If you look at a map of Brooklyn and Queens, two major roads travel from western Brooklyn on almost a straight line (with a couple of gentle zigs and zags here and there) [...]
Categorized in: Neighborhoods Roads Street Scenes Walks Tagged with: Glendale Queens Richond Hill
I fell onto West 123rd Street almost by accident, but it was most likely a consequence of the men who built the parks in the mid-19th Century, the general topography, and the engineers who laid out NYC’s street grid in 1811. The street runs through the northern stretches of Morningside Heights, the neighborhood built around Morningside [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Tagged with: Harlem Manhattan
When NYC’s Department of Transportation wants something gone, it’s gone, and there’s not much you can do. Even though the DOT has been spending a couple of decades installing retro versions of the major genres of old-fashioned NYC lampposts that dominated the streets from 1910-1950 — bishop crooks, long-armed Corvingtons, Twinlamps and Type F reverse-scrolls, it [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Street Lamps Tagged with: Financial District Manhattan
