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    • slice.standard

      Word comes from NYC’s King of Lampposts, Bob Mulero, that the perhaps centuries-old set of [...]

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      I’ve been asked to cover locales selected by Partners in Preservation, an organization [...]

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    • title.tour52page

      Forgotten New York’s 2nd tour of the 2012 season was Sunday, April 29th in Battery Park and [...]

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  • THE FIRST DONALD DESKEY NYC LAMPPOST

    April 30, 2012
    Tags:City Hall
    11,-Donald-Deskey-copy

    In 1958, a new streamlined lamppost — completely different than the ornate cast and wrought iron posts that then lit NYC streets, designed in the Beaux Arts era, 1890-1915 — appeared on Broadway on Murray Street opposite City Hall. It featured a stainless steel shaft with two slots, a curved mastarm, and a new luminaire [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Street Lamps Tagged with: City Hall

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  • ABE LINCOLN’S FAVORITE ACTOR

    April 28, 2012
    Tags:Jamaica, Queens

    James H. Hackett (1800-1871), whom Abraham Lincoln called his favorite actor, reposes at Prospect Cemetery in Jamaica, Queens, under a fallen monument. The Prospect Cemetery Association hopes to restore it soon. Actor Peter Riegert (Animal House, Local Hero, Sopranos) has made a short Kickstarter film about the largely forgotten entertainment figure and the now-reviving cemetery in [...]

    Categorized in: Cemeteries One Shots Tagged with: Jamaica Queens

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  • WHERE AM I?

    April 21, 2012

    If I’m lost somebody can give me a ride home.

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • KING MANOR — FORGOTTENTOUR 51

    April 20, 2012
    Tags:Jamaica, Queens

    ForgottenTour 51 team photo, at King Manor in Jamaica, Saturday, April 14. The tour also visited nearby Prospect Cemetery. Recap on the way soon. Meanwhile, ForgottenTour 52, Battery Park and Bowling Green, is coming up on Sunday, April 29th at noon.  

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Jamaica Queens

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  • NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC IN NYC PART 2

    April 20, 2012

    This is the regional road map of Greater New York that appeared in the July 1964 National Geographic. Where to begin about this gorgeous map? Well, they include landmarks in Brooklyn like the Schenck-Crooke House (see if you can find it) and the Vanderbilt Mausoleum in Staten Island. They also get Conduit Boulevard’s name right [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC IN NYC

    April 19, 2012
    Tags:Manhattan

    Even though your webmaster was cruelly cast out of my place of business in February and getting freelance here and there, I recently spent a few dozen dollars on the complete National Geographic on disk, 1888-2010. In the July 1964 issue (I used to have a hard copy when my father had a collection) is [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Manhattan

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  • EXPOSED TROLLEY TRACK

    April 19, 2012
    Tags:Queens, Ridgewood

    …. at 61st Street and Flushing Avenue. Trolley service along Fresh Pond Road began in 1896 and ended in the 1940s; the northernmost section of the line used 61st Street to reach Flushing Avenue, which had been laid out in its present form in 1893. Before that time it was the Brooklyn and Newtown Turnpike.

    Categorized in: One Shots Trolleys Tagged with: Queens Ridgewood

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  • FIRE ALARM SURVIVOR

    April 19, 2012
    Tags:Fire Alarms, Manhattan

    This fire alarm at Fulton and Church Streets across from St. Paul’s Church and Cemetery has been here for at least a few decades — the 1920s, probably — and withstood the destruction of the World Trade Center, which was across the street until 9/11/2001.

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Fire Alarms Manhattan

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  • ARROWHEAD SIGNS

    April 10, 2012

    Once I get a critical mass of these, they’ll get their own page. This is an example of mid-20th Century traffic signs– in general, signs pointing to bridges would be arrowhead-shaped, while those referencing tunnels would be circular. They were phased out when the large green traffic signs became prevalent, but some are still in [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Signs

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  • WHERE AM I?

    April 10, 2012

    I’m in 1939.

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • WHEELIES AT HEEL

    April 8, 2012
    Tags:Manhattan, Park Avenue

    The last two working versions of New York City’s “Wheelies,” the long-armed stoplights with the auto wheel motif first introduced in the mid-1920s, have been denuded and emasculated. They still stand on East 46th and Park Avenue at Grand Central Terminal, but they now have no practical use. Their function superceded by a modern guy-wired [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Manhattan Park Avenue

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  • PACKARD SERVICE

    April 5, 2012
    Tags:Staten Island, West Brighton

    “Packard was an American luxury-type automobile marque built by the Packard Motor Car Company of Detroit, Michigan, and later by the Studebaker-Packard Corporation of South Bend, Indiana. The first Packard automobiles were produced in 1899, and the last in 1958.” Richmond Terrace, West Brighton

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Staten Island West Brighton

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  • WARING AND HERING

    April 5, 2012
    Tags:Bronx, Pelham Parkway

    Hey Led Zeppelin fans, what song does this intersection near Pelham Parkway in the Bronx remind you of?

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Bronx Pelham Parkway

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  • IT’S ALL I EVER WANTED

    April 4, 2012
    Tags:Broadway, Manhattan, Soho

    1840s-era building, Broadway north of Canal

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Broadway Manhattan Soho

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  • WHERE AM I?

    April 4, 2012

    I’m where they put el pillars right in the middle of the street.

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • COSMOS

    March 29, 2012

    From a construction site in Red Hook, Brooklyn. In the 1970s and 1980s, the New York Cosmos of the North American Soccer League (1971-1984), like baseball’s New York Yankees, had the financial resources to sign the cream of the crop of the world’s best soccer players. A new Cosmos franchise is in the works for [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • HONEST JOHN’S

    March 29, 2012
    Tags:diners, Queens, Richmond Hill

    I’ve been past this place on Metropolitan and Hillside in Richmond Hill a number of times but never went in. Anyone know what it’s like?

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: diners Queens Richmond Hill

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  • THE KINGS OF MANHATTAN and BROOKLYN

    March 25, 2012
    Tags:Brooklyn, Midwood

    Shot from the Kings Highway platform in Midwood, an F train “passes under” the King of All Buildings. The Williamsburg Bank Tower, now One Hanson Place, is seen at right.

    Categorized in: One Shots Subways & Trains Tagged with: Brooklyn Midwood

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  • IT NEEDS A LITTLE SOMETHING

    March 25, 2012
    Tags:Brooklyn, Midwood

    This new Corvington longarm lamp at Avenue R and Kings Highway in Brooklyn was installed missing some scrollwork.

    Categorized in: One Shots Street Lamps Tagged with: Brooklyn Midwood

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  • SPRING ON DOUGLASTON PARKWAY

    March 24, 2012
    Tags:Douglaston, Queens

    Douglaston was first settled in the colonial era but was built up with numerous Tudor homes in the very early 20th Century.

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Douglaston Queens

    No Comments Read more
  • WHERE AM I?

    March 22, 2012

    I’m downtown, way downtown

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • KEEP LOOKING DOWN

    March 22, 2012
    Tags:Brooklyn, Brooklyn Heights

    Older sidewalks, like this one in Brooklyn Heights, often include metal name plates identifying the manufacturer. Most of them went out of business decades ago.

    Categorized in: One Shots Signs Tagged with: Brooklyn Brooklyn Heights

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  • WHICH WAY TO THE FAIR?

    March 21, 2012
    Tags:Corona, Flushing, Parks, Queens

    Directional sign in use during the Flushing Meadows Corona Park World’s Fair from 1964-1965. Why were blue and orange the Fair’s colors? They are the NY Mets colors, and Shea Stadium opened in 1964, when the Fair did.

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Corona Flushing Parks Queens

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  • FLUSHING ZIPPER FACTORY

    March 18, 2012
    Tags:Flushing, Queens

    Throughout most of Shea Stadium’s existence (except for the last couple of years, when Citifield was being constructed) a large, four-sided clock tower was visible beyond the left-field fence with a flashing neon sign. This was the Serval Zipper Factory, for the past few years a U-Haul distributorship. The clocks, of course, stopped long ago. [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Flushing Queens

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  • GOT A QUARTER?

    March 17, 2012
    Tags:Downtown Brooklyn

    You could park in his lot at Rockwell Place and Fulton Street for that amount once.

    Categorized in: One Shots Signs Tagged with: Downtown Brooklyn

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  • FABRIC SIGN

    March 14, 2012
    Tags:Broadway, Manhattan

    To paraphrase Yogi, you can observe a lot by looking. I was walking up Broadway after getting a new tour guide license when these painted window signs for Izquierdo & Vila, fabric exporters, manifested themselves at Franklin Street. The elaborate lettering for the word “Fabrics” seems to point the ad toward the 1920s, 30s at [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Signs Tagged with: Broadway Manhattan

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  • CASTRO CONVERTIBLES

    March 11, 2012
    Tags:Jamaica, Queens

    From Grace Church Cemetery, Jamaica Avenue near Parsons. Ok…let’s all sing along on the Daaaaaaan Ingram Show… That’s my favorite all time radio jingle. Kars 4 Kids? Bah.

    Categorized in: Ads One Shots Tagged with: Jamaica Queens

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  • CHILD’S WINDOW

    March 9, 2012
    Tags:Brooklyn, Coney Island

    Side window, Child’s Restaurant, Boardwalk and West 21st, Coney. Every time I pass this building, I notice more viscous, slimy water creatures in terra cotta, many of which were on the menu when this was a real restaurant.

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Brooklyn Coney Island

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  • CONEY FAKE

    March 9, 2012
    Tags:Brooklyn, Coney Island

    So, how do you feel about the new fake boardwalks at Coney Island?

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Brooklyn Coney Island

    View 37 Comments Read more
  • SUNNYSIDE SIGN

    March 8, 2012
    Tags:Queens, Sunnyside

    34th Street near Queens Boulevard. It’s all you really need.

    Categorized in: One Shots Signs Tagged with: Queens Sunnyside

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  • KNOW YOUR LAMPPOSTS: the curved masts

    March 6, 2012

    When modern octagonal-shafted poles, which are made of aluminum and are usually silver or gray-painted, first started appearing in NYC streets in 1950, the mast of choice was curved with a single thinner bracket, as shown here. In the early 1960s when GE M-400s and Westinghouse OV-25s, which were oblong and gave a greenish white [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Street Lamps

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  • STATEN ISLAND’S SANITATION BARN

    March 4, 2012
    Tags:Stapleton, Staten Island

    A few years ago, when ForgottenTour 16 was swinging through Tompkinsville, Staten Island, we saw this ancient barn-like structure on Swan Street, labeled “Encumbrance Depot” and wondered what it was. Secret Staten Island has come up with the answer, now that it’s semi-endangered now (every old building on Staten Island is semi-endangered): In the late [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Stapleton Staten Island

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  • SAN FRAN POST

    March 4, 2012
    Tags:San Francisco

    Classic light post, Union Street near Mason, San Francisco. San Fran has done a good job preserving classic posts — Union and Market have the same poles they had for the last several decades. I have hundreds of photos from a 2008 visit — will get around to more posts one of these days.

    Categorized in: One Shots Out of Town Tagged with: San Francisco

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  • CALLING HARLEM

    February 29, 2012
    Tags:Harlem, Manhattan

    A rusted sign reveals an alphanumeric telephone exchange on St. Nicholas Avenue and West 147th in Harlem. TR can stand for a number of things, but as this handy dandy list shows, here it was TRafalgar.

    Categorized in: One Shots Signs Tagged with: Harlem Manhattan

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  • RIDING THE WILD SURF

    February 29, 2012

    A remnant of the Seven Seas Restaurant, Surf Avenue and West 16th, Coney Island.

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • TALE OF TWO NEWSSTANDS

    February 27, 2012

    A two-shot page on One Shots. Forgive the breach from format … This newsstand, on 7th Avenue and West 51st, is one of NYC’s classics with a hand-stenciled sign. It’s bursting with the promise of newspapers, magazines, snacks, cigs. I’m out of touch — I barely use a cell phone. Are phone cards still in [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • PAINT STORE SIGN

    February 27, 2012
    Tags:Manhattan, Washington Heights

    The full technicolor glory of the Ritz Paints sign, St. Nicholas Avenue near 190th in Washington Heights.

    Categorized in: One Shots Signs Tagged with: Manhattan Washington Heights

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  • KNOW YOUR LAMPPOSTS: the Donald Deskeys

    February 26, 2012

    The Donald Deskey lamppost was introduced in 1958 at Broadway and Murray Street alongside City Hall Park, and was brought out as a standard NYC lamppost in 1962. It was designed by architect and industrial designer Donald Deskey, who is  most famed for the interiors of Radio City Music Hall, as well as the Crest [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Street Lamps

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  • NAME THAT CHECKER

    February 24, 2012
    Tags:Brooklyn, Sheepshead Bay

    Actually a four-shot today, as I found this battered but unbowed Checker on Gravesend Neck Road east of the el station. What year? The Checker logo depicts land masses that resemble none on the current globe. A look back to the prehistoric past, or perhaps a look into the far future after continental drift has [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Brooklyn Sheepshead Bay

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  • CONEY ISLAND ANIMAL CANNIBAL

    February 23, 2012
    Tags:Brooklyn, Coney Island

    Most Animal Cannibal signs (a designation created by me: the art must feature an animal chowing down or preparing to eat meat from its own species) involve pigs; however, the pigs in Animal Cannibal ads are usually seen holding strings of sausages, perhaps wearing chef hats, without actually preparing to bring teeth down upon the [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Brooklyn Coney Island

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  • NEPTUNE AVENUE SIGN

    February 23, 2012
    Tags:Brighton Beach, Brooklyn

    At Neptune Avenue and Brighton 4th Street in Brighton Beach, there’s a pretty formidable painted wall ad for a midblock locksmith. In a few decades, after the locksmith is gone and the sign has been bleached in the sun, my successors in urban archeology will be raving about it.

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Brighton Beach Brooklyn

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  • CHAMBERS STREET MOSAIC

    February 23, 2012

    Subway mosaics, most of them fashioned between 1904 and 1928, sometimes depict scenes that were long vanished even before the stations in which they are displayed were built. There’s this one, at the Chambers Street 7th Avenue IRT station, where the #1, 2 and 3 stop. Mosaic plaques against the wall in the express station [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Subways & Trains

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  • KNOW YOUR LAMPPOSTS

    February 20, 2012

    The Type 6 Bishops Crook was used on streets with narrow sidewalks and narrow widths; the bases were quite a bit thinner than standard. There are about 3 complete or partial types of this post remaining in Manhattan.

    Categorized in: One Shots Street Lamps

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  • WHERE AM I?

    February 20, 2012

    The Ministry of Love, maybe?

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • WHERE AM I?

    February 18, 2012

    I’m descending into the depths. I may never come back out again.

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • LAWRENCE STREET

    February 17, 2012
    Tags:Downtown Brooklyn

    This is the last, or at least among the last, Lawrence Street signs on the BMT platform I’ve always known as Lawrence Street. The station name was wiped from the MTA subway maps last year, when a connection to the IND A/C/F trains at the Jay Street/Metrotech station was opened. (And that station had for [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Subways & Trains Tagged with: Downtown Brooklyn

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  • WHERE AM I?

    February 14, 2012

    The painted ponies go up and down, just to the west.

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • MYSTERY POLE OF BROADWAY

    February 9, 2012

    There’s a couple of ‘mystery poles’ in Manhattan, whose former use is hidden in the vicissitudes of time. Like this one on Broadway and West 142nd. It’s too far away from the corner to have been a stoplight, and there’s no bank behind it — sometimes banks will install their own string of lampposts on [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Street Lamps

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  • GEORGETOWN RAILS

    February 9, 2012
    Tags:DC, Washington

    The last time I was in DC (December 2007) I quite accidentally stumbled on these remaining streetcar rails on O and P Street in Georgetown. Looks like the city is on a street paving program, but according to this article in Greater Greater Washington, the stones and rails will be spiffed up and put back. [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Out of Town Tagged with: DC Washington

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  • MAKING IT CLEAR

    February 6, 2012
    Tags:Jamaica, Queens

    There’s no mistake about where you are on Jamaica Avenue.

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Jamaica Queens

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  • ALLIANCE

    February 6, 2012
    Tags:Bay Ridge, Brooklyn

    Norwegian-American-Irish coalition, 5th Avenue, Bay Ridge

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Bay Ridge Brooklyn

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  • ALTERNATIVE MEANS

    February 6, 2012

    If you want to catch the LIRR at Fresh Pond, you might think about the bus. There hasn’t been a train since March 1998.

    Categorized in: One Shots Subways & Trains

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  • FORT GREENE GHOST

    February 1, 2012

    The true miracle is that this, the last of Brooklyn’s ‘humpback’ street signs, is still in place. Out of thousands this is the last one. In fact I haven’t been by here in a few months — I hope it’s still there. Really, the Brooklyn Museum or a local outfit should claim it before the [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • LEAVING SOON

    January 30, 2012
    Tags:Brooklyn, Navy Yard

    This is Building D on Officers Row along Flushing Avenue in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Barring any further inertia, it will be torn down by NYC soon. The US  Navy allowed it to fall apart to the point of no return over the decades.

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Brooklyn Navy Yard

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  • FT. LEE DOGS

    January 30, 2012
    Tags:Fort Lee, New Jersey

    This July we’ll be walking the George Washington Bridge to Fort Lee  in the dead dog heat of summer for hot dogs at Hiram’s. Details coming soon.

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Fort Lee New Jersey

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  • JUST SO YOU KNOW

    January 30, 2012

    Herald Square

    Categorized in: One Shots Signs Subways & Trains

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  • GIANTS’ LAST STAND

    January 30, 2012

    Other than a plaque in the Polo Grounds Houses commemorating Bobby Thomson’s Shot Heard Round the World in 1951, there’s absolutely no indication in Upper Manhattan that the San Francisco Giants once played in NYC from the 19th Century until 1957. Or… is there? As it says in the holy texts ForgottenBook: The New York [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • WHERE AM I?

    January 28, 2012

    Better see me while I’m here. Looks like I won’t be around for long.

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • THE WAY OF ALL FLESH

    January 26, 2012

    JJ’s Navy Yard Cocktail Lounge, which had been on the corner of Flushing and Washington Avenues, spent its last few years as a strip club. It is being divided up into a Dunkin’ Donuts and a Subway as we speak. In a few years, all stores will be banks, Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, McDonalds, and Subway. [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • WHERE AM I?

    January 25, 2012

    Ichabod Crane is just a couple of blocks away.

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • WHERE AM I?

    January 24, 2012

    I’m at a place where you need to be well-prepared.

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • WHERE AM I?

    January 22, 2012

    What’s behind the masks?  Or in front of them?

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • NAME THAT CAR

    January 20, 2012
    Tags:Brooklyn, Red Hook

    Red Hook. It’s a Ford, that much I know.

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Brooklyn Red Hook

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  • WHERE AM I?

    January 19, 2012

    I am the last of my kind. I had ten brothers, and they have all disappeared. When I am gone, there will be none to replace me, and I will be forgotten.

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • WHERE AM I?

    January 16, 2012

    I’m stuck in a moment and can’t get out of it.

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • WHERE AM I?

    January 13, 2012

    At a dome of the purest blue

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • WHERE AM I?

    January 11, 2012

    Somebody PLEASE tell me these two streets rhyme. Don’t go looking at google maps or atlases. You just gotta know.

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • X FACTOR

    January 4, 2012
    Tags:Corona, Queens

    There are two streets in NYC that begin with X, if you don’t count Brooklyn’s Avenue X. Both are Xenia Streets: in Corona, Queens, and Old Town, Staten Island. Xenia (which I had thought was a flower, but that’s zinnia) is a Greek term meaning ‘strange’ or ‘foreign’; it frequently turns up in combined terms [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Corona Queens

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  • NAME THAT CAR

    January 2, 2012

    Route 101, Glen Cove, NY

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  • NAME THAT CAR

    January 2, 2012

    Glen Street, Glen Cove, NY. Chevy, but what model/year?

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  • WHERE WAS I?

    January 1, 2012

    This railroad station was taken out of service about 30 years ago. The handsome brick building with the arched windows on the right was built in the 1850s for one of Samuel Lord’s daughters — Lord of Lord & Taylor fame. After being alllowed to deteriorate into the worst sort of decrepitude, it was torn [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Subways & Trains

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  • FOUND IN STATEN ISLAND

    December 31, 2011

    The John Lindsay campaign ad (likely dating to 1965) uncovered on Flatbush Avenue reminded me of the time back in 1998 when I was dazedly wandering the back roads of Staten Island and I located this shed on Crabtree Avenue in Bloomingdale, on which there was affixed a sign with Mayor Robert Wagner Jr.’s name [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Signs

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  • BROADWAY BISHOP CROOK

    December 31, 2011

    This Type 24M bishop crook (among the first generation of such posts first installed before 1920) can be found in Spuyten Duyvil, Bronx, on the west side of Broadway near West 230th Street.

    Categorized in: One Shots Street Lamps

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  • 34th ST. TUNNEL SIGN

    December 29, 2011
    Tags:Manhattan, Murray Hill

    Here’s a surviving 1940-era street sign on Tunnel Exit Street, an exit from the Queens Midtown Tunnel in Murray Hill. photo: Steve Garza The tunnel was designed by Ole Singstad, and it was opened to traffic in 1940 under the supervision of New York City Tunnel Authority to relieve traffic congestion on the city’s East [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Signs Tagged with: Manhattan Murray Hill

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  • WHERE AM I?

    December 29, 2011

    I’m at one of a series of bridges called the Duncomb Arches. But where are they?

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • WHERE AM I?

    December 27, 2011

    I am in a land once occupied by slaughterhouses and tanneries, that has since been converted into an exclusive haunt of the 1%ers.

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • WHERE AM I?

    December 27, 2011

    I am in a land where giant boulders line the curb on both sides of the street, seemingly dropped from space. Exact location please.

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  • LONESOME IN KEW GARDENS

    December 27, 2011
    Tags:Kew Gardens, Queens

    I wonder what the story is with this seemingly abandoned Tudor at 115-8 Park Lane South in Kew Gardens. At least I think it’s abandoned. The grass had been unmowed for months, and the gate was wide open and I walked right onto the lawn. Been looking for a place to put the ever-growing ForgottenResearch. [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Kew Gardens Queens

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  • MATCHLESS

    December 27, 2011
    Tags:Brooklyn, Greenpoint

    The ground floor of this building at Manahttan and Driggs in Greenpoint used to be an auto repair shop that sold Matchless shock absorbers, and displayed a lighted sign. When the repair shop left and a bar moved in, they ironically called themselves Matchless, since the sign was there, and they let it stay there. [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Brooklyn Greenpoint

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  • 157th STREET PLAQUE

    December 26, 2011
    Tags:Manhattan, Washington Heights

    I had missed this one until now — a plaque at the 157th Street station on the 7th Avenue-Broadway line, likely installed as the station opened in 1904, directs visitors to the Morris-Jumel Mansion, a colonial-era private home that George Washington used as a headquarters during the Revolution. From the ForgottenBook: This oldest private home [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Subways & Trains Tagged with: Manhattan Washington Heights

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  • CORTELYOU WINDOW

    December 22, 2011
    Tags:Brooklyn, Ditmas Park

    The picture windows of the Cortelyou Road station window are placed directly over the tracks, which used to be part of  asteam railroad conecting Prospect Park and Coney Island. Through it, we see “DRUGS” and “SODA” signs, which are a small part of a large painted sign on the side of the old GREENFIELD THE [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Subways & Trains Tagged with: Brooklyn Ditmas Park

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  • THE AMERICAN MERIDIAN

    December 22, 2011
    Tags:DC, Washington

    This line in the Watergate area of Washington, DC, was used by USA mapmakers to divide the world into eastern and western hemispheres between 1848-1884. Thereafter, the USA accepted the meridian at Greenwich Observatory in the UK as the divider of latitude & longitude.

    Categorized in: One Shots Out of Town Tagged with: DC Washington

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  • BUTLER BROTHERS WAREHOUSE

    December 22, 2011

    The Butler Brothers Warehouse (later the Morgan Industrial Center), 350 Warren Street in the Jersey City Historic Warehouse District, is one of the most imposing brick buildings in the city. It was constructed about 1905 for the Chicago-based Butler Brothers retailing and wholesaling company. Butler Brothers was a retailer and wholesale supplier based in Chicago. It [...]

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  • WHERE AM I?

    December 18, 2011

    I’m at a longtime NYC high school that was an all-boys school until it moved to Queens, accepted girls, and the world turned color.

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • RED HOOK WINDOW

    December 14, 2011
    Tags:Brooklyn, Red Hook

    Red Hook is Brooklyn’s Australia: an island nation unto itself. Cut off from downtown and Park Slope by the Gowanus Expressway and forbidding housing projects, it boasts a street system all its own, with few streets that stretch into other neighborhoods. Odd creatures found nowhere else in Brooklyn stammer and stumble down the streets. Efforts [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Brooklyn Red Hook

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  • WOODHAVEN FIRE

    December 12, 2011
    Tags:Queens, Woodhaven

    At 95th Avenue and 106th Street in Woodhaven. Coincidence? Who knows.

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Queens Woodhaven

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  • WHERE AM I?

    December 11, 2011

    I found a series of arches that cascade into infinity, like opposing mirrors. Where am I?

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  • WHERE AM I?

    December 11, 2011

    I found a greaser, and a clock with no hands. Where am I?

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  • MEET ME AT THE AUTOMAT

    December 6, 2011
    Tags:Automat, Manhattan

    Guest post by ForgottenFan David Silver While walking down 7th Avenue about a month ago, I happened to look up at at the parking structure at the corner of 37th and 7th.  This structure was supposed to be used for all the people who enjoyed throwing their money away at the nearby OTB.  Since the [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Automat Manhattan

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  • FLATLANDS FIRE ALARM

    December 3, 2011

    As hundreds of fire alarms around town are decommissioned in the age of wireless telephony, they are being reimagined and reappropriated for new purposes. Here, a former alarm stanchion on Flatlands Avenue west of Ralph Avenue in Canarsie has been given a new lease on life as a people’s community rubbish receptacle. Occupy your neighborhood!

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  • ELMHURST FIRE ALARM

    November 30, 2011

    Some of NYC’s fire alarms, now being gradually grandfathered and attritioned out of existence because of the mobile phone networks, have been in place since very early in the century. This one on Broadway in Elmhurst, Queens, still sports an original shaft that formerly held an alarm light notifying passersby of the presence of an [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • SUBWAY SUN AD

    November 29, 2011

    In the 1940s and into the 1960s, a series of hand drawn, light hearted signs depicting proper subway etiquette appeared in the ad strips in the subway cars, usually under the “Subway Sun” banner, all of them drawn by  an artist named Amelia Opdyke “Oppy” Jones. I’ll have more of these signs on a future page. [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Subways & Trains

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  • R1/9 IND CARS ON 6th AVE LINE

    November 27, 2011

    The MTA is running a trainset of R1/R9 cars on the 6th Avenue Line on Saturdays during the holiday season. I have a number of interior and exterior shots but will try to get a few more before doing a lengthier FNY page. Here’s the schedule if you want to catch one: The Holiday Special [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Subways & Trains

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  • ROWAN STREET

    November 26, 2011

    A head-scratcher at the 65th Street station on the IND Queens Boulevard line (R and M trains) has a modern sign showing the exit at Rowan Street and Broadway. 65th Street hasn’t been known by that name since the 1920s, when most Queens streets were grouped under one numbering system. Early IND signs, installed in [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Signs Subways & Trains

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  • SMITH INFIRMARY

    November 26, 2011

    Sadly, this view looking north on Cebra Avenue in Stapleton, Staten Island will no longer be available next month as the Samuel R. Smith Infirmary, formerly Staten Island Hospital, is being razed after over 30 years of abandonment. Let The Kingston Lounge tell the sad tale of why it wasn’t landmarked, as well as take [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • HELLGATE ARCHES

    November 22, 2011
    Tags:Astoria, Queens

    I have always considered the massive concrete arches that lift railroad tracks to the Hell Gate Bridge over the streets of northwest Astoria almost as imposing as the arch bridge itself. Tracks, arches and bridge were constructed from 1914-1917 and connect Pennsylvania Station, the Sunnyside Yards, and southern Queens with the northeast United States.

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Astoria Queens

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  • WORLD’S FAIR RELICS

    November 22, 2011
    Tags:Flushing Meadows, Queens, World's Fair

    A pair of unusually-shaped structures along the pedestrian walkway on Flushing Bay north of Citifield, now used mainly as relief from the hot sun in sumer, were originally designed for the World’s Fair Marina in 1964 and later found use as Coast Guard stations. Paul Lukas has the whole story.

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Flushing Meadows Queens World's Fair

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  • SMITH TAVERN

    November 22, 2011
    Tags:Smithtown, Suffolk

    Built before the Revolutionary War (1740), the Epenetus Smith Tavern, 211 Middle Country Road in Smithtown, originally stood just west of the juncture of Middle Country & North Country Roads.  This site was a popular stop on the Brooklyn to Sag Harbor stagecoach route during the 1770s, and during the Revolutionary War, the house often played [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Smithtown Suffolk

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  • SIGNS OF BROOKLINE

    November 18, 2011

    Despite federal guidelines elsewhere that mandate green and white reflective street signs, Brookline, Massachusetts (the birthplace of John F. Kennedy) has always been permitted to retain its handsome set of bas relief street signs, with a silver background and black letters. Have the signs been landmarked?  11/18/11

    Categorized in: One Shots Out of Town

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  • WOODSIDE CORNER

    November 18, 2011

    One of my favorite buildings in Woodside, at Laurel Hill Boulevard and 65th Place, is this frame house, with a deli on the ground floor. This type sign, with vinyl letters, was distributed to many mom and pops by the Coca Cola Company; Coke ads are invariably displayed in either side. Beats the vinyl awnings [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Signs

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  • PAST THE ALCOL

    November 18, 2011

    This sign has been by the Manhattan-bound platform at the Woodside Long Island Rail Road station since I started using it in 1992, and probably long before that. These days the closest Alcol Realty is in Ornageburg, NY in Rockland County. IL stands for ILlinois.

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • #58 TROLLEY

    November 16, 2011
    Tags:Queens, Ridgewood

    The #58 trolley, the Ridgewood-Flushing Line, ended service on 7/17/1949, but here on 60th Place and Kleupfel Court (near 67th Avenue) it’s like it never left. In Ridgewood, the line had its own right of way under the el train bound for Metropolitan Avenue (this is the Nassau Street line in Manhattan, Broadway Line in [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Queens Ridgewood

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  • QUEENS 1921

    November 14, 2011

    In 1921, the numbering system in Queens, where most named streets were given numbers (a practice that strived to lessen confusion by eliminating different street systems in towns around the borough (ie. 2nd Street in Astoria and Flushing would thence have different numbers) had begun. As this excerpt from the list of Queens streets in [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • FORGOTTENTOUR 50

    November 14, 2011

    Thanks ForgottenFans (shown here at the Starrett-Lehigh Building) who made it through all 5 hours on Tour #50 at Hudson River Park, as well as Jessica DuLong and the crew of the John J. Harvey Fireboat, who gave us a thorough tour. A lengthier writeup will appear soon.

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • WHO AM I?

    November 14, 2011

    I’m considered to be the father of my country.

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • TRYON ROW

    November 8, 2011

    There are, or were, only two streets called “Row” in New York and wouldn’t you know it, they met each other. Tryon Row was a one block street between Centre Street and Park Row just south of the Municipal Building. Tryon Row’s space is now occupied by a modest sitting space with tables and chairs. [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Signs

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  • BISHOP CROOK BRACKET

    November 8, 2011
    Tags:Manhattan

    This Bishop Crook wall bracket lamp on Nassau Street near Beekman in the City Hall Park area is one of two remaining in New York City. The other one is on the 39th Street Bridge spanning Sunnyside Yards in Queens.

    Categorized in: One Shots Street Lamps Tagged with: Manhattan

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  • WABC

    November 7, 2011

    Anyone who knows me well knows that the job I always wished I could have had was a Top 40 disk jockey in the 1960s, with the jokes, the patter, the jingles and the greatest pop music in history. In the 1960s a variety of radio stations employed the Top 40 pop format, among them [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • SUBWAY ENTRANCE LAMPS

    November 7, 2011

    I took this photo on Montague and Clinton Streets in Brooklyn Heights, where a quartet of old-style subway entrance lamps have been preserved (or, as I suspect, made new to match the old styles). At one time all subway staircase entrances carried lamps like this, with the BMT (Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit) marked with green and Interborough [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Subways & Trains

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  • PROSPECT CEMETERY

    November 7, 2011

    I just stumbled on a pile of photos I took in Prospect Cemetery in Jamaica, Queens in 2004. History under our noses has been pretty much left to the vandals, though cemetery caretaker Cate Ludlam’s tireless work has enabled the reconstruction of the cemetery chapel, which is now a concert and events hall. Still, the [...]

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  • INDEPENDENT SUBWAY

    November 4, 2011
    Tags:Greenwich Village, Manhattan

    The removal of a newsstand at West 3rd Street and 6th Avenue has revealed the presence of an old-style enamel sign attached to a stairway rail. Signs of this type were once prevalent in the subways before the current Unimark white on black signs appeared in the late 1960s. The Unimark syle gradually spread throughout [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Subways & Trains Tagged with: Greenwich Village Manhattan

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  • 2nd and 9th

    November 3, 2011
    Tags:East Village, Manhattan

    I’ll have to break my one-photo rule on the ONE SHOTS category, which I haven’t previously done. Above is a photo taken sometime in the Fab 50s by previously unheralded photographer Vivian Maier, showing a huge throng facing a speaker who is apparently standing in the middle of 2nd Avenue. The photo isn’t captioned, so [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: East Village Manhattan

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  • ELMHURST LIBRARY

    November 1, 2011
    Tags:Elmhurst, Queens

    Elmhurst will be losing one of its historic buildings in the near future, as its 105-year old library on Broadway, funded, like many of its brother libraries in the 5 boroughs, by steel industrialist/philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, will soone be torn down to make way for a larger structure. The $27.8 million, 30,000-square-foot facility will span [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Elmhurst Queens

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  • FINNAN HADDIE

    October 31, 2011
    Tags:Manhattan, South Street Seaport

    Even though the South Street Seaport area ceased to be home to NYC’s foremost fish wholesaler when the Fish Market moved to Hunt’s Point, Bronx, in 2005, there are still ghost signs around to remind you that the overnights were once bustling with seafood dealers and sellers, like this sign on Beekman Street near South. [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Manhattan South Street Seaport

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  • FISHBEIN’S

    October 31, 2011

    Only remaining remnant of Fishbein’s, which was either a convenience or hardware store at Astoria Boulevard and 21st Street in Queens.

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • CASTRO BUILDING

    October 27, 2011
    Tags:Madison Square, Manhattan

    43 West 23rd Street was built as a warehouse in 1897 (Henry Hardenbergh) and in that Beaux Arts era, even warehouses had panache. There’s something to arrest the eye on each floor, from the big cat friezes on the ground floor to the pilasters (half columns) on the second, to the arch windows on the [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Madison Square Manhattan

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  • SEE YOU IN THE SPRING

    October 27, 2011
    Tags:Brooklyn, Coney Island

    It had been assumed that Paul’s Daughter (formerly Gregory and Paul’s) the non-chain dispenser of seaside goodies on the Coney Island boardwalk, would be closing to make way for a Starbucks, a Bank of America, or some large non-boardwalk appropriate chain, but Zamperla Amusements, which holds the leases of both Daughter and nearby Ruby’s, had [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Brooklyn Coney Island

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  • UNDER THE BRIDGE

    October 27, 2011
    Tags:Astoria, Queens

    At 31st Street south of Ditmars Boulevard, the Astoria Line el passes beneath the concrete arch Hells Gate Bridge viaduct bringing freight and passenger trains over the East River. On this artwork on the south side of the viaduct, only one of these performers was from Astoria. Which one?

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Astoria Queens

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  • PAUL ROBESON THEATRE

    October 26, 2011

    The Paul Robeson Theatre, formerly St. Casimir’s Roman Catholic Church,  at 40 Greene Avenue near Carlton in Fort Greene in Brooklyn, has been newly given Landmarks status. It’s a small, compact midblock building converted to a theatre by Robeson Theatre head Dr. Josephine English in 1980. The theatre houses local community productions and events — [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • WHERE AM I

    October 20, 2011

    We are somewhere in the five boroughs. Obviously on old fashioned metal street sign has been retained. Without perusing a map, or without using the map index at least, Where are we?    

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • BLUE SKY: NON-BUSINESS AS USUAL

    October 17, 2011
    Tags:diners, Hunters Point, Queens

    The former Blue Sky Diner, 49th Avenue and 21st Street, Hunters Point, has been mostly empty beginning in the 1990s, but in 2010-2011 it took a star turn as the upscale M(agasin). Wells Restaurant, featuring haute cuisine and snobby service. In the summer of 2011, M. Wells’ owners announced they were moving out (seeking another space [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: diners Hunters Point Queens

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  • JERSEY CITY STREET SIGNS

    October 13, 2011

    Though I haven’t been there in a couple of years, I enjoy hiking around Jersey City, especially to observe street fixtures like lampposts and signs. There’s still a mishmosh of streets signs from several decades in different styles. Some of the oldest are these hand painted signs — and when the sun starts bleaching them, [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • FAT BLACK PUSSYCAT THEATER

    October 13, 2011
    Tags:Greenwich Village

    Minetta Street is a tiny Greenwich Village lane laid out atop Minetta Brook, which formerly flowed on the surface but was subsumed into a sewer generations ago. Along with its partner, Minetta Lane, it formed one of New York City’s original black neighborhoods, called Little Africa, in the 1820s and 1830s. The nation’s first black [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Greenwich Village

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  • DUMBO’s LOST RAILROAD

    October 11, 2011
    Tags:Brooklyn, DUMBO

    Many visitors to the DUMBO, Brooklyn area mistake the numerous tracks found in the Belgian-blocked streets for old trolley tracks. However, since until a few years ago DUMBO was almost entirely given over to warehousing and manufacturing (except for the small Vinegar Hill neighborhood on the eastern end) trolley lines never troubled it north of [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Subways & Trains Tagged with: Brooklyn DUMBO

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  • DUMBO SIGN

    October 11, 2011
    Tags:DUMBO

    While shuffling past a grand old brick factory building on Bridge and Front Streets in DUMBO, Brooklyn, I noticed scaffolding protecting the sidewalk, a sure sign of renovation. I noted with dismay that the pair of hand-lettered signs on the corner saying STAR FASTENER DELIVERY etc. that had been there for decades had been blasted [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: DUMBO

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  • ASSER LEVY BATH HOUSE

    October 10, 2011

    Asser Levy Place runs for just the length of 2 blocks, from East 24th to 25th Streets west of the FDR Dive. For a short street, it is unusually wide. It was originally laid out as part of Avenue A; parts of the avenue run intermittently from the East Village north to Harlem and are [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • COLUMBUS DAY

    October 10, 2011
    Tags:Arthur Avenue, Norwood

    I haven’t spent much time in Norwood, Bronx over the years — it’s an interesting area that can now justifiably claim to be the new Little Italy, since the old Little Italy in SoHo has pretty much been absorbed by Chinatown. Christopher Columbus, an Italian sailing under the Spanish flag in 1492, was looking for [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Arthur Avenue Norwood

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  • NYC SALVAGE WAREHOUSE

    October 7, 2011
    Tags:Williamsburg

    The NYC Salvage Warehouse on Berry Street north of the Williamsburg Bridge in Brooklyn auctioned off its treasure trove of New York City artifacts to a single bidder in July, and will be torn down to make way for condos. The place is something of an artifact itself, as the outside sports a sign going [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Williamsburg

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  • A LOT OF BULL

    October 6, 2011
    Tags:Long Island, Smithtown

    Wall Street has been in the news for all the wrong reasons of late. Of course, one of its iconic images is Arturo Di Modica’s Charging Bull bronze sculpture at Bowling Green, a draw for tourists from all over the globe. However, there is an even bigger bull in Smithtown, New York, a few miles [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Long Island Smithtown

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  • CHEROKEE APARTMENTS

    October 6, 2011
    Tags:Manhattan, Upper East Side

    I had always been under the impression that Cherokee Place, between East 77th and 78th Streets near the FDR Drive, was cut through when the Drive was constructed here in the early 1940s, but the short alley has actually been here since 1912. It was named for the Cherokee Club, an East 79th Street headquarters [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Manhattan Upper East Side

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  • SIDEWALK PLATES

    October 5, 2011

    While scuttling furtively through the streets of New York, looking down while trying to avoid meeting the gaze of my betters, I sometimes catch sight of elements that the more industrious, competent and confident New Yorkers fail to see. One of these is the sidewalk plates that were installed by long-ago concrete pourers and sidewalk [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • SIDEWALK COMPASS

    October 3, 2011
    Tags:Brooklyn Heights

    There are still some very old metal sidewalk compasses to be found on sidewalks around town. This one is at Hicks between Poplar and Middagh Streets at PS 8 in Brooklyn Heights (se Comment below), no doubt installed by a developer or surveyor a century ago. True north is indicated by the up arrow. More [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Brooklyn Heights

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  • THE BEST SIGNS

    October 3, 2011
    Tags:Downtown, Manhattan

    Around 2000, the Department of Transportation installed distinctive black and white signs developed by the Alliance for Downtown Manhattan that featured easy-to-read street names, house numbers found on the block where the sign was installed, and a stylized representation of a local landmark. The signs went from the Battery up to about Fulton Street. After [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Downtown Manhattan

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  • HOW’S YOUR PAGODA?

    September 30, 2011
    Tags:Brooklyn, Prospect Park

    The 10-columned (5 on one side, 5 on the other) Music Pagoda in Prospect Park was, once upon a time, the park’s chief concert venue. It can be found on the east end of the lengthy central meadow called the Nethermead, set back in the woods, and a bit north along park paths from the [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Brooklyn Prospect Park

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  • ST. CORNY

    September 30, 2011
    Tags:Governors Island

    Regretfully another season on Governors Island is coming to an end. The island became a public park in 2005 after the last vestiges of its role as a military defender of NY Harbor were shedded, and most of it has been opened to the public as a park. It is open throughout the spring and [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Governors Island

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  • MAKE UP YOUR MIND

    September 29, 2011
    Tags:Bay Ridge

    Exit, or is is it entrance, at 7th Avenue and 86th Street, Nathan’s, 2005. The sign has since been replaced with something with a little more sense.

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Bay Ridge

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  • OLDER THAN THE REST

    September 29, 2011
    Tags:Green-Wood

    Though Green-Wood Cemetery was opened for business in 1838, there are occasional stones and memorials scattered around from earlier times. Sometimes, a family will disinter from one cemetery and relocate in another. The most famed example of this is DeWitt Clinton (1769-1828) who was originally buried in Little Britain, NY but was reinterred in Green-Wood [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Green-Wood

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  • At Green-Wood: THE PRENTISS BROTHERS

    September 29, 2011
    Tags:Green-Wood

    Baltimore natives Clifton and William Prentiss each died for their country. In 1862, with the USA and Confederate States at war, Clifton joined the Union army and later rose to the rank of brevet (or temporary) colonel. His younger brother, William, however, sympathized with the South and joined the army of the Stars and Bars. [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Green-Wood

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  • THE CANDY MEN

    September 28, 2011

    A very large painted ad on a corner factory at Henry and Middagh Streets proclaims Peaks Mason Mints, and is the former home of the Mason, Au and Magenheimer Candy Company. According to advertisement researcher Walter Grutchfield, the company was in business here between 1892 and 1949 and was founded by confectioners Joseph Mason and [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • SERVAL ZIPPER FACTORY

    September 28, 2011
    Tags:Flushing Meadows

    Throughout most of Shea Stadium’s existence in Flushing Meadows, Queens (except for the last couple of years, when Citifield was being constructed) a large, four-sided clock tower was visible beyond the left-field fence. This was the Serval Zipper Factory, latterly a U-Haul distributorship. The clocks, of course, stopped long ago. In their early days at Shea, [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Flushing Meadows

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  • WILLETS POINT

    September 27, 2011

    Willets Point Boulevard between Roosevelt Avenue and Northern Boulevard is the heart of the “iron triangle” consisting of metal works, scrap metal dealers, car repair shops, and wholesalers. The city has been trying to get the businesses evicted for years, but the owners have fought back with lawsuits. Powerful interests have wished to build housing [...]

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  • MAX. HEADROOM

    September 27, 2011

    Wood sign announcing total height from road to elevated trestle on Roosevelt Avenue at the Mets-Willlets Point station. It’s a very old design and could have been here since the 1920s, when the el was extended out to main Street.

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  • CURB

    September 27, 2011

    Before the “pooper scooper” regulation was passed in the 1980s, cleaning up after your dog was merely voluntary, and the Department of Sanitation could merely encourage people to do so. The DSNY went through several sign designs in that effort. This one from the 1960s is still in place.

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  • MANNING MEANS BEST BOWMAN

    September 26, 2011

    One of a pair of surviving painted ad signs on East 32nd near Lexington advertises the old Manning-Bowman Company, founded in 1832 and purchased in 1872 by Connecticutters Edward Manning and Robert Bowman. The company was famed for its metalware, and Manning-Bowman pieces are still prized by collectors. Of course, the sign should be read: [...]

    Categorized in: Ads One Shots

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  • GLASER

    September 26, 2011
    Tags:Kips Bay, Manhattan, Milton Glaser

    I was aimlessly and unsteadily scarpering east on East 32nd Street a couple of years ago, looking for something interesting to photograph, when I happened on an isolated turn of the (20th) Century townhouse bearing a bright red and white sign by the door. Approaching it further, I discovered that it hosed the studio of [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Kips Bay Manhattan Milton Glaser

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  • LIMELIGHT: sublime to not as sublime

    September 23, 2011

    Most younger New Yorkers know the Episcopal Church of the Holy Communion on the NW corner of 6th Avenue and West 20th Street as the Limelight Disco, one of a flock of Limelights run by impresario Peter Gatien in the 1980s and 1990s; other Limelights had been opened in Hollywood, FL; Atlanta, Chicago; and London. [...]

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  • ENCLOSED PHONE BOOTH

    September 23, 2011
    Tags:Upper West Side, West End Avenue

    One of the last enclosed public phone booths in New York City can be found, or could (this photo was taken 3 years ago) at West End Avenue and West 66th. There are other booths like this, old fashioned ones made of wood and with doors that close, in restaurants, bars, libraries around town. Formerly, [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Upper West Side West End Avenue

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  • GHOST OF 8TH AVENUE

    September 21, 2011
    Tags:8th Avenue

    I had only seen the right part of his painted ad on 8th Avenue near West 47th Street, advertising rooms with steam heat, hot and cold water, and housekeeping. The rest of the wall has become recently visible, and there is what seems to be an ad for “Society Smokes” and one for shoes at [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: 8th Avenue

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  • MEET THE BARON

    September 20, 2011
    Tags:Park Hill, Staten Island

    Baron Friedrich Wilhelm August Heinrich Ferdinand von Steuben (1730-1794) was a Prussian Revolutionary War-era military leader. He is considered one of the fathers of the Continetal army in teaching the fire points of warcraft, miliitary drills, tactics, and principles. He served as George Washington’s chief of staff in the last years of the war. In the Park [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Park Hill Staten Island

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  • MIND THE LIGHT, KATE

    September 20, 2011
    Tags:lighthouses, Staten Island

    The Robbins Reef Lighthouse, familiar to Staten Island Ferry riders as it sits at the confluence of Upper New York Bay and the Kill Van Kull, was originally built in 1839, with the present tower built in 1883. Though it looks small from the ferry, it is 46 feet high. The Robbins Reef is a [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: lighthouses Staten Island

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  • TOMMIE’S LOST LEGACY

    September 19, 2011

    On April 10th, 1969, the second game of the 1969 World Series victory season, Mets center fielder Tommie Agee hit a HR into the upper left field deck at Shea Stadium in Flushing Meadows. No batter, before or since, reached the upper deck there. Tommie Agee passed away in 2001, The Expos played their last [...]

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  • HELLO, BLUE SKY

    September 19, 2011

    The old Blue Sky Diner, a 1954 Mountainview at 21st Street and 49th Avenue in Hunters Point, took a star turn in 2010-2011 as the upscale M. Wells Restaurant, featuring haute cuisine and snobby service. In the summer of 2011, M. Wells’ owners announced they were moving out (seeking another space in Hunters Point) and [...]

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  • LAST OF THE CHEYENNE

    September 16, 2011
    Tags:diners, Penn Station

    The Cheyenne Diner began as the Market Diner at 9th Avenue and 33rd Street sometime in the early 1940s. The diner manufacturer was Paramount Modular Concepts of Oakland, NJ, in business since 1932 and one of only a handful of diner manufacturers (Diner-Mite of Atlanta, GA, De Raffele of New Rochelle, NY, and Kullman of Lebanon, NJ are among [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: diners Penn Station

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  • THE HOUSE OF HORRORS

    September 16, 2011
    Tags:Brooklyn, Flatbush, H.P. Lovecraft

    Famed horror fiction writer Howard Phillips Lovecraft, usually associated with Providence, Rhode Island, lived in two residences in Brooklyn from 1924-1926. His first was in an apartment (I don’t know which) with wife Sonia Greene  at 259 Parkside Avenue, shown here, just east of Flatbush Avenue. Lovecraft was unable to amass much income other than what [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Brooklyn Flatbush H.P. Lovecraft

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  • MOBIL

    September 15, 2011
    Tags:Flatbush Avenue, Park Slope

    Mobil ad, Flatbush Avenue near 8th Avenue in Park Slope, Brooklyn. The word “mobile” comes from the Latin mobilis, movable and movere, to move. Mobil Oil is a descendant of the John D. Rockefeller-founded Standard Oil, which became Standard Oil of New York, or Socony, in 1911 after the trust was broken up. IN 1963 [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Flatbush Avenue Park Slope

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  • BOND made good buildings

    September 15, 2011
    Tags:Brooklyn, Flatbush

    The broad building with the defunct clock tower on the east side of Flatbush Avenue just south of the Prospect Park entrance at Ocean Avenue is the former Bond Bread factory (slogan: Bond Makes Good Bread) whose baking aromas used to suffuse the neighborhood, greeting Brooklyn Dodgers fans en route to Ebbets Field. It was [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Brooklyn Flatbush

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  • BILL THE BUTCHER’S GRAVE

    September 14, 2011
    Tags:Brooklyn, Green-Wood

    William Poole, street fighter, political kingmaker, meat cutter and pugilist (1821-1855). More than six feet tall and weighing 200 pounds, William Poole stood out in an age of small men. He began his career in the Bowery Boys, New York’s most important street gang. Unlike today’s gangsters, the Boys were working men–whether laborers or self-employed [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Brooklyn Green-Wood

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  • OUT IN THE STICKS

    September 14, 2011
    Tags:Brooklyn, Coney Island

    It appears as if the discount furniture stores that mostly  line the north side of Surf Avenue from Stillwell Avenue to West 8th Street will be moving out soon. At least I heard that rumor. In the Coney Island classic era, the early to mid-20th Century, amusements and amusement parks like Dreamland were here, as [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Brooklyn Coney Island

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  • ONE ARCH, PLEASE

    September 14, 2011
    Tags:Sheepshead Bay

    With one fast food joint or franchise every other block, it’s hard to remember a time when there weren’t a lot of them in New York. I had a meal at McDonalds as a kid in upstate New York in the 1960s, but it wasn’t until 1975 or so that I actually ate at a [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Sheepshead Bay

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  • SAIL ON SAILOR

    September 13, 2011

    Terra cotta frieze from the original South Ferry station, in use for over 90 years until it was closed in 2009. All service now runs to the modern yet bland South Ferry station, where there is a new connection from the IRT to the BMT, as well as the ferry.

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • THE LAST REDOUBT

    September 13, 2011
    Tags:Corona, Flushing, Queens

    Though the official name of the station is Willets Point Boulevard (for the LIRR, it’s Mets-Willets Point) Shea Stadium lives on in leftover 1964-era signage. Shea Stadium, of course, was torn down after the 2008 season. The stadium was originally named for attorney William Shea, who championed a new New York City NL team after [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Corona Flushing Queens

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  • CHANGING CODES

    September 12, 2011
    Tags:Hunters Point, Long Island City

    Between about 1964 and 1985 all street signs in Queens looked like this, with an off-white background and blue lettering. In 1964 the city installed large vinyl and metal street signs around town, replacing smaller enamel and metal signs that preceded them. The city had started color coding signs in a haphazard fashion before 1964, [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Signs Tagged with: Hunters Point Long Island City

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  • RUBY M.

    September 12, 2011
    Tags:tugboats

    The Ruby M. tugboat accompanies a barge in Upper New York Bay, September 10, 2011. Built in 1967, by Jakobson Shipyard of Oyster Bay, New York (hull #433) as the Texaco Fire Chief for Texaco Marine.  The tug was later acquired by Dann Ocean Towing of Miami, Florida where she was renamed as the Ruby M.  She is [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: tugboats

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  • CHECK MATE

    September 12, 2011
    Tags:cabs, Westerleigh

    Checker cab, Forest Ave and Manor Road, Westerleigh, Staten Island. At the height of the vehicle’s popularity in the roaring 20’s, there were as many as 8,000 Checker cabs plying the roads of New York City. The Checker cab virtually ruled the roads from 1921 to the late 1970s, outlasting many other popular taxi types that included cabs made by [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: cabs Westerleigh

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  • MANOR ROAD ARMORY

    September 11, 2011
    Tags:armories, Castleton Corners, Staten Island

    [Located at Manor road and Martling Avenue in Castleton Corners], the Manor Road Armory and its signature three-story towers and corner turrets was noted as “a unique contributor to the city’s rich military history.” It was one of only three armories built statewide in the 1920s and one of the last completed. Constructed for the [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: armories Castleton Corners Staten Island

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  • TEN YEARS AFTER

    September 11, 2011
    Tags:Staten Island, Westerleigh

    Victory Boulevard and Jewett Avenue, Staten Island. 10 years after terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center, attacked the Pentagon and attempted to level the Capitol or White House, painted murals of flags are still prominent in NYC and countrywide.

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Staten Island Westerleigh

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  • USS NEW YORK

    September 11, 2011

    I saw the USS New York from the ferry on Saturday. Though it could be mistaken by the layman for an aircraft carrier, the vessel is actually classified as an amphibious transport dock. Shortly after 11 September 2001, Governor of New York George E. Pataki wrote a letter to Secretary of the Navy Gordon R. Englandrequesting that the Navy bestow [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • TUNNEL SURVIVORS

    September 10, 2011
    Tags:Muray Hill

    1936-vintage lamppost at Tunnel Entrance Street at the Queens Midtown Tunnel in Murray Hill.  Somehow, the original fixtures, futuristic-looking in the 1930s, have survived. They seem to be precursors of the cobra neck lamps that appeared in the early 1960s.

    Categorized in: One Shots Street Lamps Tagged with: Muray Hill

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  • MULRY SQUARE

    September 10, 2011
    Tags:Mulry Square

    Since shortly after the 9/11/01 terrorist attack a lot at Mulry Square, the Greenwich Village intersection of 7th Avenue South, West 11th and Greenwich Avenue, had had its chain link fence festoned with brightly painted ceramic squares promoting the concept of healing

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Mulry Square

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  • RED TIDE

    September 10, 2011
    Tags:Hudson River, Manhattan

    9/10/11: Silt running from overflowed upstate streams, courtesy Tropical Storms Irene and Lee, has left the Hudson River with an unusual reddish color.

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Hudson River Manhattan

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  • PROSPECT VIEW

    September 9, 2011

    Flatbush Avenue near 7th, Park Slope. A look at some interlocking brickwork, elaborate molding, and lettering at the peak of an apartment building. From 1880-1915 or so, architects helpfully showed dates of construction, as well as the original name of the building, sometimes the first owner, and occasionally even the architect himself. Details like this [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • THROUGH A GLASS YELLOWY

    September 9, 2011
    Tags:Jackson Heights, Queens

    Not a Photoshop filter — the intersection of Broadway and 73rd Street in Jackson Heights, through a colored window panel at the Bway-74th Street el station.

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Jackson Heights Queens

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  • BROOKLYN TROLLEY

    September 9, 2011
    Tags:Red Hook

    Bob Diamond, who explored and later instituted tours in the long-defunct Atlantic Avenue Tunnel, attempted to reinstitute a trolley line from Red Hook to downtown Brooklyn along Columbia Street in the late 1990s. He acquired several trolley cars from around the country and laid a square block of track along Conover and Reed Streets, long [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Red Hook

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  • GRIFFON SHEARS

    September 9, 2011

    Griffon Cutlery Works was located at 151 West 19th Street from 1920 to about 1965, and its large painted sign can still be made out from 7th Avenue between West 19th and 20th Streets, even though it has faded considerably in recent years. Pinking shears are scissors, the blades of which are sawtoothed instead of straight. They [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots

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  • MARETZEK COURT, Staten Island

    September 8, 2011
    Tags:Pleasant Plains, Staten Island

    I had always thought Maretzek Court, off Bloomingdale Road north of Amboy Road in Pleasant Plains, Staten Island, honored a developer or builder but actually the court honors a long-ago musician. The handy-dandy Morris’s Memorial History of Staten Island has a listing for Max Maretzek Senior (1821-1898) born in Brno in what is now the [...]

    Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Pleasant Plains Staten Island

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  • GREENPOINT, TOP TO BOTTOM.

    May 1, 2005
    Tags:Brooklyn, Greenpoint

    Greenpoint Savings Bank, Manhattan Avenue and Calyer St. Forgotten aspects of the Garden Spot of Brooklyn. KNOWN as the “garden spot of Brooklyn”, an eponym bestowed by theBrooklyn Eagle many years ago, Greenpoint is Brooklyn’s northernmost neighborhood, separated from Long Island City by Newtown Creek. It is the place where the country’s first ironsided warship, the Monitor, [...]

    Categorized in: Neighborhoods One Shots Street Scenes Tagged with: Brooklyn Greenpoint

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