Forgotten New York is in Association with the Greater Astoria Historical Society, a non-profit organization supported by the Long Island City community.
I have always been a big fan of inter-building bridges, by which I mean bridges that connect two buildings without accessing the ground, even though I have not had the privilege of actually traversing any except one: it was a pedestrian bridge that connected the World Trade Center with the World Financial Center over West [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Tagged with: Manhattan Penn Station
CONTINUED FROM PART 1 GOOGLE MAP: WOODLAWN HEIGHTS TO RIVERDALE Where was I? At the confluence of 5 streets at one intersection: Webster Avenue, East 238th, East 240th/McLean Avenue and Bronx River Road, and Nereid Avenue if you count what the locals call the bridge over the Bronx River and its parkway. Heading west again [...]
The Twin, originally produced for use on 5th Avenue at the dawn of the electrified lamppost era in the 1890s, originally had a different design (the mast of one of those originals can still be seen at the NE corner of 5th Avenue and East 23rd Street at Madison Square). Later, a modified design that [...]
Categorized in: One Shots Street Lamps
In August 2012 I walked a convoluted route from the West 233rd Street station on the #2 elevated northwest, east and northwest again through Woodlawn Heights (or is it Woodlawn? I call the cemetery Woodlawn) southern Yonkers and northern Riverdale, one of the pleasanter walks in town–to a point, which I will explain later. The [...]
Categorized in: Neighborhoods Walks Tagged with: Bronx Riverdale Westchester Woodlawn Heights Yonkers
These ‘humpback’ navy and white street signs were standard issue in Manhattan and the Bronx from 1913 until the early 1960s. Politically, Manhattan and the Bronx were the same county until 1914. This intersection no longer exists, as East 177th was replaced by the Cross-Bronx Expressway in the 1950s. C.L. Croes was a 19th Century [...]
I was circumnavigating Gramercy Park (a small parcel of a private park between East 20th and 21st Streets and 3rd Avenue and Park Avenue South), preparing for a possible tour or new ForgottenBook Again entry. Mere commoners are not permitted into Gramercy Park. You must be a keyholder at any of the buildings surrounding the [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Tagged with: Gramercy Park Manhattan
On a Saturday when the predicted rain did NOT materialize (in 2012 there has not been a drop of rain whatsoever during ForgottenTours so far) almost 30 ForgottenFans assembled at Dyckman Street and Broadway and 4 hours of Forgottening began. Humid and tropical it may have been, but we saw an area of Manhattan that [...]
In June 2012, on a weekday afternoon (I was, and at this writing am, still paying the penance for years of unpreparedness for the modern world by being unemployed) I braved the searing, unrelenting, inhumane heat in western Queens, were vegetation and the cooling cover of large trees is nearly absent, on a walk on [...]
Categorized in: Walks Tagged with: Hunters Point Queens Sunnyside
Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Maspeth Middle Village Queens
The BMT Chambers Street station sits beneath the Municipal Building with City Hall across the street. It once served as the end of the line for trains crossing the Manhattan Bridge, and long ago, even saw Long Island Rail Road service. The north platform has been out of service for decades, and the City has [...]
Categorized in: One Shots Subways & Trains Tagged with: City Hall Manhattan
Categorized in: Neighborhoods Walks Tagged with: Richmondtown Staten Island
One of the more mysterious practices that I’ve noticed, and have mulled over in in the back of my head for years, is some banks’ practice of installing their own lampposts on the sidewalks outside their property. I’m not sure they’re maintained any more, as I do not often happen by at night. Year in [...]
Categorized in: One Shots Street Lamps Tagged with: Brooklyn Park Slope
One of Brooklyn’s oldest street signs is hiding in plain sight in Brooklyn’s premier residential neighborhood (or so the papers and magazines would have you believe). At the corner of 7th Avenue and 1st street on the edge of a landmarked section of Park Slope — indicated by the maroon 1st Street sign — is [...]
Categorized in: One Shots Signs Tagged with: Brooklyn Park Slope
It had been quite awhile sine I had taken a long ramble in the Fifth Borough, apart from some wanderings from the ferry along Kill Van Kull to Snug Harbor, so I took a few hours in July 2012 to travel from Oakwood Heights through Lighthouse Hill and around again to Richmondtown, a location almost [...]
Categorized in: Neighborhoods Walks Tagged with: Lighthouse Hill Oakwood Heights Richmondtown Staten Island
The I’s have it in northern Manhattan, where seemingly everywhere you go, something begins with an I. There’s Inwood, the neighborhood; Inwood Hill Park; Isham Park; and Indian Road, which runs two blocks (actually a very short block and a much longer block) from West 214th to W. 218th Streets one block west of Seaman [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Tagged with: Inwood Manhattan
