Forgotten New York is in Association with the Greater Astoria Historical Society, a non-profit organization supported by the Long Island City community.
After a bracing walk in the “new” Coney Island boardwalk area in March 2013, my fears that the Brooklyn Riviera would be starbucked, mcdonaldsed and condo’d into a comatose state were somewhat allayed. Stalwarts like Cha Cha’s and Shoot The Freak were gone but longtime mainstays like Ruby’s Bar, Lola Star and Paul’s Daughter had [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Tagged with: Brooklyn Coney Island Gravesend
What did I take away from the 1964-1965 World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows, Queens? Well, I was eight years old. I don’t remember much from back then. What I do remember are impressions. The Beatles on transistor radios everywhere. The waffles and ice cream. I had an orange hat with a feather on it. Fountains [...]
Categorized in: Street Lamps Tagged with: Flushing Meadows Queens
Part 4: Staten Island I’m surprised I never thought of this until now, after about fifteen years of doing Forgotten New York. I’ve seen these historic plaques mounted on poles as I travel in Nassau and Suffolk Counties, and a very occasional one in the five boroughs. They’re part of an initiative devised by New York [...]
Categorized in: Signs
In 1893, Louis Comfort Tiffany and his business partner, Arthur Nash, founded the Stourbridge Glass Company in Corona next to the railroad tracks. In 1902, the name of the enterprise was changed to Tiffany Furnaces. His patented “favrile” (handmade) glass was created and manufactured here in this factory, 43rd Avenue and 97th Place. Tiffany’s works reached the [...]
I was loitering around Lafayette Street in late March 2013, before and after recording a voice track for the New Museum New York 1993 Pay Phone installations, when it occurred that Lafayette Street between East 4th and Astor has a whole lot of nice-looking buildings. Indeed, many are landmarked, most dating to the 1880-1900 period, [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Tagged with: Manhattan Noho
Brooklyn Heights is known for its attached brownstones and apartment buildings, but here and there are some freestanding buildings, as well as frame and wood houses, leftovers from the very beginnings of the neighborhood. 59 Hicks Street, at Cranberry Street, is one of those relics. It was built by cooper (cabinet and furniture maker) John [...]
Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Brooklyn Brooklyn Heights
383-389 West End Avenue (and 301-307 West 78th around the corner) were built in 1886, when West End Avenue was still called 11th. They were among the finest buildings their architect, Frederick B. White, ever designed, for the simple reason that White died at age 24 just after the buildings were opened. According to American Architect [...]
Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Manhattan Upper West Side
72 is my favorite temperature, and it’s also the number of my favorite subway station as well, the one with the distinctive Heins and LaFarge headhouse, built during the first wave of subway construction from 1900-1908, at the tripartite intersection of Amsterdam Avenue, Broadway and West 72nd. It was given a major upgrade in the [...]
Categorized in: One Shots Subways & Trains Tagged with: Manhattan Upper West Side
PART 3: MANHATTAN PART 1: BRONX and BROOKLYN PART 2: QUEENS PART 4: STATEN ISLAND I’m surprised I never thought of this until now, after about fifteen years of doing Forgotten New York. I’ve seen these historic plaques mounted on poles as I travel in Nassau and Suffolk Counties, and a very occasional one in [...]
FDNY Engine 55 at 363 Broome Street near Mott is especially reconizable because of its large terra cotta identifying label across the top of the front entrance. The firehouse was designed by R. H. Robertson and finished in 1899. At the time architectural style was moving toward the ornate Beaux Arts style and away from [...]
Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Little Italy Manhattan
Though the Department of Transportation has now succeeded in eliminating every “olive” stoplight stanchion on the streets of NYC — they used to guard traffic, a pair to each intersection beginning in the 1920s — a few working models can still be found in Central Park, like this one on the West Drive. This [...]
Categorized in: One Shots Signs Tagged with: Central Park Manhattan
In Boston, subway and surface lines are identified by color: red, blue, green and orange. Recently, an express bus system was implemented, known as the silver line. Lines can be identified by color there because trains/streetcars are assigned to specific trackage. In NYC, the system is so large and complicated that trains can be rerouted [...]
Categorized in: One Shots Out of Town Tagged with: Boston ROXBURY
Stamped-metal sign commemorating Andrew F. Hayes, who was killed during World War I, at Tremont and Parker Streets in Roxbury, Boston. I’ve become fascinated with these signs, which can be found all over town. The red globe in the background is mounted on a fire alarm so traffic can readily see it. In NYC, fire [...]
Categorized in: One Shots Out of Town Tagged with: Boston ROXBURY
Following a tip about ‘ugly, futurisic’ lampposts appearing on the 9th Avenue and West 14th Street area, I found instead on West 15th a small clutch of the new davit-style lampposts of which the Department of Transportation is becoming increasingly proud. By definition, a davit-style post is one in which the shaft curves out to [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Street Lamps Tagged with: Chelsea Manhattan
PART 2: QUEENS PART 1: BRONX and BROOKLYN PART 3: MANHATTAN PART 4: STATEN ISLAND I’m surprised I never thought of this until now, after about fifteen years of doing Forgotten New York. I’ve seen these historic plaques mounted on poles as I travel in Nassau and Suffolk Counties, and a very occasional one [...]
Categorized in: Signs
Although the story of young George Washington, the cherry tree and his father is apocryphal, the first president is associated with cherries. Washington lived for a short time during his presidency at #3 Cherry Street, though the mansion is long gone and so is #3 Cherry Street: it formerly diverged from Pearl Street just north [...]
Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Lower East Side Manhattan
Hagstrom Maps used to produce an incredibly detailed map of lower Manhattan, which showed all major buildings and adresses, subway lines and their entrances and exits, and even subtle curvatures and widenings and narrowings of streets. Manhattan, of course, was a different world in the early 20th Century when this map was produced, and [...]
Categorized in: Alleys Forgotten Slices
Since we recently lost another of 5th Avenue’s classic 1910s-era Twin lampposts, at 32nd Street, there re just 4 left from a proud history of hundreds. Classic Twin: 5th and 19th Demise of a classic at 5th and 23rd “Five for Lighting” Donald Deskey posts of 5th Avenue However, soon we may be pronouncing the [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Street Lamps Tagged with: 5th Avenue Midtown
PART 1: BROOKLYN and the BRONX PART 2: QUEENS PART 3: MANHATTAN PART 4: STATEN ISLAND I’m surprised I never thought of this until now, after about fifteen years of doing Forgotten New York. I’ve seen these historic plaques mounted on poles as I travel in Nassau and Suffolk Counties, and a very [...]
Although Bishop Crook lampposts have proliferated all over town again over the past couple of decades, there was a time, between about 1962 and 1980, when they almost went extinct, except for a few survivors in downtown Manhattan. In 1980 it all changed when a flock of retro-Crooks, using the original molds (now available from [...]
Categorized in: One Shots Street Lamps Tagged with: Manhattan Turtle Bay
It’s a shame how 5th Avenue is deteriorating so much, lamppost-wise. At one time there was an unbroken string of these Twins (in 2 different species, admittedly) from Washington Square to Central Park. Now, just four remain. We lost this one recently. Even 5th Avenue’s set of twin Deskeys, special editions debuting in 1965, are [...]
Categorized in: One Shots Street Lamps Tagged with: Manhattan Midtown
Brooklyn’s former steam railroads, the West End, Sea Beach, Culver, and Brooklyn, Flatbush and Coney Island, which chuffed across farmland on the way to the sea, have left a lasting legacy, in that all of them have become subway or elevated lines. The West End and Sea Beach were named for seaside hotels to which [...]
Categorized in: Subways & Trains Tagged with: Brooklyn Flatbush Midwood Park
For want of a better name, I’ll call these lamps, which illuminate pedestrian walkways, “Robert Moses lamps” because they appear on pedestrian walkways located on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, Clearview Expressway, and Long Island Expressway (there are probably others), all bruited through Brooklyn and Queens neighborhoods by NYC traffic czar Robert Moses in the 1950s. They [...]
Categorized in: One Shots Street Lamps Tagged with: Robert Moses
Temporary lampposts, used when a regular lamp has fallen over, been crashed into, or is under repair for whatever reason, consist of simple wooden conical bases in which the electric works are contained, and a simple pipe to hold the luminaire. Temporary posts of this type have neen used for nearly a century. My [...]
Categorized in: One Shots Street Lamps
