Forgotten New York is in Association with the Greater Astoria Historical Society, a non-profit organization supported by the Long Island City community.
Long Island City, Queens, which once encompassed all of western Queens west of Woodside from the East River south to Newtown Creek, was once a city on its own (beginning in 1870) before Queens was absorbed by Greater New York in 1898. Even after the coagulation, LIC loomed large in Queens affairs, as its first Borough [...]
Categorized in: Street Necrology Tagged with: Long Island City Queens
So there I was, meandering around in the cold dead Brooklyn winter, when I spotted a lamppost remnant on Nostrand Avenue and Macon Street. I have a radar for these kind of things, and can spot promising lamppost stubs and remnants quite easily. This one stumped me because it didn’t look like the usual base that [...]
Categorized in: Street Lamps Tagged with: Bedford-Stuyvesant Brooklyn
BY GARY FONVILLE Forgotten NY Correspondent The banking industry has gone through many changes. Look around. Twenty years ago if you had an account at Westminster Bank and keep it active, you would have automatically been a Fleet Bank customer. If you continued with Fleet, you would have instantly become a Bank of America customer. [...]
Categorized in: Street Scenes Tagged with: banks Bronx Brooklyn Manhattan
December 5, 2003 wasn’t exactly a great day in Forgottenville – it was a Saturday, I was working at Macy’s, as all of us at Macy’s had to do on Saturdays during the holiday season, and I was screamed at by the boss, an almost comically ill-tempered woman, over a ridiculous matter. It was, however, snowing [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Tagged with: Christmas Greenwich Village
Categorized in: Walks Tagged with: Coney Island Midwood Sheepshead Bay
CONTINUED FROM PART 1 WAYFARING: CONEY ISLAND TO MIDWOOD At East 14th Street, the BMT Brighton Line bridges over the Belt Parkway and in an unusual arrangement, a pedestrian walkway adjoins it, with barbed razor wire preventing miscreants from entering the tracks. Remnants of a previous lighting arrangement have been left in place, as these [...]
Categorized in: Walks Tagged with: Brooklyn Coney Island Midwood Sheepshead Bay
Stanton Street follows a parallel path with its partner, Rivington Street, from the Bowery east to Chrystie, Forsyth east to Pitt. There are various pieces of it leftover as walkways in the Gompers and Baruch Houses, constructed in the 1940s. Many streets in this neighborhood are named for associates of colonial-era James de Lancey, who owned most [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Tagged with: Lower East Side Manhattan
Rivington is a street in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, in general running from the Bowery east to Pitt Street. In 2010 it exists in three separate pieces, a one-block stretch between Bowery and Chrystie, a main section from Forsyth east to Pitt, and a small piece remaining at Columbia. It was originally laid out as one [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Tagged with: Lower East Side
During my recent walk from downtown Brooklyn to Crown Heights, I was meandering down Montgomery Street when, just past Nostrand Avenue I spotted an odd little part-dirt, part Belgian blocked path issuing forth toward the southeast. Actually I was doing more than meandering because I had chosen to walk Montgomery Street specifically so I would go by [...]
Categorized in: Alleys Cobblestones Tagged with: Brooklyn Crown Heights
BY SERGEY KADINSKY Forgotten NY contributor The Rockaway Peninsula of Queens never disappoints an urban explorer. Physically separated from the rest of New York City by water, it often feels like a forgotten sixth borough. The borough’s southwestern tip, Breezy Point is a collection of gated communities, military history, and unspoiled nature. Without a special [...]
Categorized in: You'd Never Believe You're in NYC Tagged with: BREEZY POINT FORT TILDEN Queens ROXBURY
St. Patrick’s “old” Cathedral, 260-264 Mulberry Street between Price and East Houston, is called “old” to differentiate it from its “newer” cousin uptown, St. Patrick’s Cathedral at 5th Avenue and East 50th, designed by James Renwick Jr., opened 1878 and finished in 1888. Old St. Pat’s, NYC’s original Catholic cathedral, is quite a bit older, having started construction [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Tagged with: Little Italy Manhattan
Categorized in: Neighborhoods Street Scenes Tagged with: 9th Avenue Manhattan Meatpacking
In 1901, Auburndale, east of Flushing, Queens, was empty farmland. Enter the New England Development & Improvement Co., which bought the 90-acre Thomas Willets farm, and lo and behold, Auburndale the community was born. The name comes from Auburndale, Massachusetts, the home of L. H. Green, who developed the community starting in 1901, when the Long Island [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Neighborhoods Tagged with: Auburndale Queens
