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Forgotten New York is in Association with the Greater Astoria Historical Society
The Greater Astoria Historical Society, chartered in 1985, is a non-profit organization supported by the Long Island City community. We are dedicated to preserving our past and using it to promote our community's future.
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Archives
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SIGNING OFF: more ancient signage
January 19, 2012Here’s some more examples of ancient signage found by FNY’s Gary Fonville… As a sign enthusiast, my eye always wandered to this building on Second Avenue near 116th Street in Spanish Harlem, Manhattan. Fischer & Co., who sold pork products, felt it was worth it to spend probably a lot of money for this terra-cotta beauty. [The [...]
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FOUND IN STATEN ISLAND
December 31, 2011The 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 [...]
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34th ST. TUNNEL SIGN
December 29, 2011Here’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 [...]
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SIGNS OF 8TH AVENUE
December 13, 2011I find myself shambling through indifferent crowds in Manhattan more often these days, as I have taken a job (as of December 2011) smack in the heart of the Flatiron District, formerly a down-at-heel stretch containing anonymous offices on 5th Avenue, and a stretch of mostly abandoned, monumental stores on 6th. When I first encountered [...]
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ROWAN STREET
November 26, 2011A 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 [...]
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WOODSIDE CORNER
November 18, 2011One 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 [...]
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TRYON ROW
November 8, 2011There 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. [...]
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HUDSON STREET: best building street sign
October 27, 2011Beach Street ranks among the Forgotten men among its neighbors in Tribeca. Two blocks between West and Greenwich were hacked off in favor of the Independence Plaza apartment house development in the early 1970s (depriving present-day New Yorkers, perhaps, of a monument commemorating the landing of the very first steam locomotive in America, the Stourbridge Lion, [...]
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CHANGING CODES
September 12, 2011Between 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, [...]
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THE WALKING MEN: Cross signals from around the world
July 5, 2011A fascinating exhibit has turned up on the plywood boards surrounding a construction site on Church Street downtown, between Barclay Street and Park Place. It is the second in a series called Walking Men 99™ created by Israeli artist Maya Barkai and curated by the Alliance for Downtown New York. Many pedestrian traffic signals throughout the globe have switched over [...]
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SUBWAY STREET NECROLOGY
February 27, 2011The Forgotten NY Book of Street Necrology is a thick, dusty, ancient tome, encrusted with the grime of centuries, its lock rusting and the last flecks of gilt flaking off the bindery. Unlike the recent flimsy editions of the AIA Guide to New York City (whose pages separate from the glue binding soon after first [...]
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THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE Retired line designations Page 2
May 9, 2010CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 In 1977 a set of R16 cars with #6315 bringing up the rear during the Great Age of Graffiti displays a JJ sign. Note Franklin K. Lane High School at right, and a black on white enamel station sign. Until the Unimark system was adopted for subway signage, there were a hodgepodge of different styles [...]
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THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE Retired line designations
May 9, 2010FORGOTTEN NEW YORK HarperCollins, ORDER from Amazon: paperback or hardcover FORGOTTEN NEW YORK T SHIRTS and more! By the end of June [2010] the V and W trains will be no more. As part of a broad-based budget cutting procedure, the millions-in-arrears MTA, getting little help from the state and federal government, now turns [...]
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REXALL and other ASTORIA SIGNS
March 24, 2010 -
KEEP SEARCHING for ancient writing on the wall
March 14, 2010An acquaintance of mine, a ForgottenFan, recently complained in her blog entry about slow walkers in NYC, and the impositions they put on most other people in NYC, who like to walk fast — on the way to jobs, meetings, dates, making more money, and whatever New Yorkers walk fast in order to reach. I’ve [...]
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BARELY THERE. Signs hanging on by a pixel
December 19, 2009December 2009: The end of another Forgotten year.I am hoping for a bigger year in 2010, more ForgottenTours and at least a couple of out of town trips. For the last couple weeks of 2009 I will be posting lightly; this is one of the weeks in which Forgotten NY correspondent Gary Fonville’s contributions come in [...]
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SIGNS OF MANHATTAN AVENUE
July 8, 2009Though luxury developers have had their eyes on Greenpoint, Brooklyn’s northernmost neighborhood, making inroads here has not been quite as easy here as it was in the rezoned Williamsburg, immediately to the southwest. And so, the Garden Spot of Brooklyn has been mostly successful in holding fast to its mom and pop shops and decidedly Polish [...]
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SUNNYSIDE SIGNS
June 17, 20096/09. Catching up on some older stuff while I am gradually recovering from surgery. In December I was out for lunch and a short walk in Sunnyside, Queens and in just that brief time, mainly on Skillman and Roosevelt Avenues, I was able to find a number of examples of old-school signage…some of which looked as [...]
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END OF A CLASSIC STOPLIGHT
January 19, 2009I was in Forest Hills/Rego Park the other day (January 2009), 108th Street and 69th Road to be precise, when I vaguely remembered I had found a classic flute-bottomed, olive-colored stoplight about a block away, on 110th Street, in June 2005. Of course, I wanted to go over and say hello to my old friend. Instead, [...]
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BROADWAY HOUSE NUMBERS in Noho
December 28, 2008Do architects design house numbers as parts of buildings anymore? Today house numbers are usually indicated by metal numbers attached separately above the door, or if we’re really talking cheap, by glued-back numbers that get slapped on transoms or on front doors. In a recent stroll on Broadway on Open House NY weekend, I noticed [...]
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HERALD SQUARE POSTER
December 26, 2008December 2008: Just got a special ForgottenAlert from FFan David Sanders: I was returning from upstate NY today and got off the PATH train at 33rd Street, heading to the N train…at the top of the stairs there were two large vertical posters whose ads had been removed, and there were 4 small posters, two in [...]
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ROOSEVELT AVENUE SIGNS
December 17, 2008It may have come across before but I enjoy New York City’s elevated trains. Not every American city has them anymore, or has them to the extent that New York does. Boston tore down its Orange Line el over Washington Street in the late 1980s, and the last remnant of the Green Line el over Causeway [...]
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SEE THE USA but first see some ancient signage in the Bronx and Brooklyn
October 4, 2008By GARY FONVILLE Forgotten NY correspondent FNY’s cameras are always busy picking out things that exemplify NYC’s past. Some things that our cameras find are many decades old, but some may be barely a few years old… TITLE CARD: S.M. Rose was a vibrant Chevrolet dealership until sometimes in the 1970′s. Now the building houses a carpet emporium. [...]
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GOOD SIGNS in Woodhaven and Richmond Hill
September 15, 2008You have to hand it to Nassau and Suffolk Counties…both of those counties mark many of their historic locales with blue and gold signs giving brief details of the building, when it was built, et cetera. Queens used to have quite a few of them, too…these days there are only a couple of the older [...]
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9TH AVENUE STORE SIGNS
September 3, 20089th Avenue, Hell’s Kitchen between West 42nd and West 57th Streets, is known for restaurants showcasing cuisines from around the globe…European, Asian, Caribbean, you name it. On a recent walk south on 9th, I wasn’t particularly hungry and so skipped all the restaurants and bistros, and instead snapped photos of all the terrific signage to be [...]
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WRITING ON THE WALL. Street signs on buildings.
August 23, 2008Long before the “humpbacked” street signs showing cross streets were installed on cast-iron lamps in the 1910s…long before porcelain, enamel and aluminum embossed signs appeared in the 1950s…and long before color-coded vinyl and aluminum signs appeared around 1964 (the green and white successors of which still dominate around town) … there were street signs chieseled onto building corners. [...]
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SIGNS OF JAMAICA
August 13, 2008I was staggering around the Briarwood-Jamaica border a few weeks ago (in July 2008) ignoring the drizzle and humidity and getting images for a possible Briarwood page and picking up possible ideas for a long-planned Jamaica page when I spotted some unusual sights and signs along Jamaica Avenue, which I had earlier chronicled in its Brooklyn stretch late [...]
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5TH AVENUE SIGNS
July 8, 2008 -
RUNNING THE NUMBERS NYC telephone exchanges
February 28, 2008By GARY FONVILLE Forgotten NY Correspondent Once upon a time, telephone customers were assigned alphanumeric telephone numbers. For example, the numbers were such as FOundation 8-3556 (now 368-2556), MOnument 2-2491 (now 662-2491) or NEvins 8-3886 (now 638-3886). The letters and first digit designated a certain geographic area and were referred to as exchanges. Numbers beginning with FOundation [...]
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RUNNING THE NUMBERS – Part 2 More NYC Telephone Exchanges
February 23, 2008Once upon a time, telephone customers were assigned alphanumeric telephone numbers. For example, the numbers were such as FOundation 8-3556 (now 368-2556), MOnument 2-2491 (now 662-2491) or NEvins 8-3886 (now 638-3886). The letters and first digit designated a certain geographic area and were referred to as exchanges. Numbers beginning with FOundation were in the vicinity of Lenox [...]
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SODA, CANDY and a SLICE. Signs and places that are gone
August 30, 2007Your webmaster never runs out of ForgottenMaterial. That’s how vast New York City is. Unfortunately, lately the bulldozers seem to be knocking down things faster than Forgotten New York can chronicle any of their historic or unusual aspects. Ideally, I’d have unlimited time to gad about town with a camera, but I am at a [...]
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COMMIES AND FASCISTS. Their governments may be dead, but some of the remains can be found in NYC
July 27, 2007Mike Tyson wears a Mao tattoo. Thousands wear T-shirts depicting Che Guevara. (Dozens wear the Forgotten NY T-Shirt). Communist ideology has produced totalitarian governments that enslaved and murdered millions throughout the decades, but there are still people who keep the dream hanging on. Ah well. FNY isn’t a political site; Lord knows we have a lot of [...]
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NEON NOODLINGS. Neon ghosts from Gary Fonville.
February 12, 2007The Golden Age of NYC Neon has come and gone. Believe it or not, the noble gas (since it combines with other elements only reluctantly, in lab conditions) is fairly rare on Earth, being available only in trace form in the atmosphere. If gathered in sufficient quantity it is a red-orange tangerine color. Most commercial [...]
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CONEY SIGNS. Some strange and wonderful signs around Coney Island…
December 25, 2006Acting on a report from a ForgottenFan that the two remaining Ocean Parkway milestones (seen on this page) at Avenue P and Neptune Avenue had been removed, on Christmas Eve 2006 I jumped on an F train and headed, in alarm, for Midwood. Thankfully both the nearly 150-year-old markers are still there, although if the [...]
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SUBWAY SIGN SMORGASBORD Aged signs around town, from the 60s to the present
December 16, 2006HOME ADS ALLEYS CEMETERIES COBBLESTONES LAMPS NECROLOGY NEIGHBORHOODS SIGNS STREET SCENES SUBWAYS & TRAINS TROLLEYS YOU’D NEVER BELIEVE YOU’RE IN NYC FORGOTTENSTUFF FORGOTTENBLOG FORGOTTENBOOK DIARY FORGOTTENTOURS LINKS SEARCH QUEENS CRAP FORGOTTEN NEW YORK HarperCollins, ORDER from Amazon:paperback or hardcover FORGOTTEN NEW YORK HOODIES and more! The early subway in postcards [...]
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DIXON CAFETERIA. Briefly in the light, November 2006.
November 23, 2006A slice of history form the 1940s was revealed on 8th Avenue and 43rd Street in Hell’s Kitchen in late November when the old facade of the Dixon Cafeteria was revealed. A jeans store had occupied this space previously, and it was being converted to the new 8th Avenue Pavilion. As David Dunlap put it [...]
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NEON NIGHTS. NYC’s classic neon alight.
July 22, 2006New York has a marvelous collection of neon signs, and while we’ve heretofore collected scads of them on previous Signs pages we’ve never previously done a Neon Nights page, when the signs are doing what they were born to do. Your webmaster’s Canon Powershot S1 IS is ill-equipped for night photography. That’s why you call [...]
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WALK, DONT RUN. Possibly the final DONT WALK/WALK signals in NYC.
June 4, 2006Forgotten Fan Steve Fallon has discovered an isolated flock of DONT WALK/WALK signs, apparently the last of their species, in an isolated corner of the Bronx. These may be the only ones still remaining in New York City; all others were replaced beginning in 1999 by signals I call the Hand (red) and the Man [...]
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OLD SCHOOL. More ancient or otherwise distinctive business signage.
April 30, 2006above: West 4 Street near 7th, Greenwich Village Maniacally busy schedule this weekend. Finishing a chapter for another book, helping a friend pack for a move, leading a ForgottenTour. Too much for your rapidly aging webmaster. Time to relax and put together a page of mindless drivel. “What’s the difference from any other week?” you ask. I am [...]
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BRING ME EDELWEISS! Forgotten dairies around town.
April 8, 2006Before modern efficiencies, milk and milk products were done on a local scale. Eventually due to New York City’s swelling population, larger facilities were needed. There were many private companies filling that demand, but by 1930 three dairy companies dominated the dairy scene. They were the United States Dairy Products Corp., Borden’s and Sheffield Farms. Most [...]
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MEET ME AT… Those mysterious names over apartment building entrances.
January 28, 2006There are hundreds…perhaps thousands…of names over apartment house doors and building cornices all over town, memorialized for decades but known to no one. Of course, some are just made-up names thought impressive by the builders, but some commemorate wives, relatives, pets, companies…who can tell? Their names, at least, are known to passersby brefly as they [...]
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THE ORIGINAL 28 SUBWAY STATIONS Part 2
January 16, 2006Original 28, Part One Subway design reached its apotheosis in the original 28 subway stations, designed by architects George Heins and Christopher LaFarge, engineered and built by William Barclay Parsons and opened to the public on October 27, 1904. The original line ran from City Hall to 145th Street and is now a part of today’s [...]
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THE ORIGINAL 28 SUBWAY STATIONS Part 1
January 16, 2006Like many things, the subways disappoint more often than not. The waits are too long, graffiti is creeping back again, the express won’t wait for passengers to cross the platform from the local, and token booth clerks, or rather station attendants, can bark more often than offer polite responses. A look at a 1967 report I [...]
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BANK YANKIN’. Former banks around town have left their signs.
September 10, 2005 -
PLASTERED. 1950s-vintage wall posters exposed
August 19, 2005I WAS stalking around the Lower East Side, having been rebuffed in an effort to photograph the exterior of the Eldridge Street Synagogue (it’s covered with scaffolding during an ongoing renovation). I remembered I wanted to shoot the exterior of 97 Orchard Street, which the Lower East Side Tenement Museum maintains as a preserved slice [...]
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HAND MADE. 1940s hand-lettered and neon signs from around town.
August 17, 2005 -
BULLETIN POLES
May 14, 2005IT’S not the only wayto tell you’re in a hipster neighborhood … the clothing and the hairstyles are a good tipoff…but one surefire method is the number of stickies and signs taped up all over every conceivable piece of street furniture. The lampposts, fire alarms, don’t walk signs and buildings are covered with a mix [...]
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CHICKEN SHACKS
December 21, 2004BY MIKE EPSTEIN of satanslaundromat Everyone knows about Kentucky Fried Chicken, lately known as KFC, whose hundreds of franchise locations in New York City make sure chicken and biscuits are never too far away. But KFC tends to stick to middle-class neighborhoods and busy commercial streets, leaving broad swaths of the city under-chickened. Uncountable entrepreneurs [...]
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LOWER EAST SIGNS
October 16, 2004THE Lower East Side of cheap clothing bins, wholesale bargains and sweatshops is vanishing, as Chinatown expands east into its southern section (between, say, Delancey and Canal) and hipsters and yuppies infiltrate its northern flank, between Delancey and Houston. The LES, though, is still very much a bargain clothing enclave, though, and for some reason, [...]
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ETCHINGS OF BETHESDA Scratchiti from long ago at a Central park icon.
November 23, 2003photo: Rachelle Bowden The Bethesda Fountain and Terrace, at the north end of Central Park’s Mall at about 72nd Street, has long been a focal point and a favorite meeting place in the park. Emma Stebbins’ statue, Angel of the Waters, is named for an angel in the Gospel of John who touched the waters [...]
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HISTORY COLLECTOR. Attorney Lawrence Rogak’s eclectic collection of NYC signage.
September 14, 2003Insurance attorney Lawrence Rogak of Oceanside, Long Island, has been collecting old signs and NYC arcana for many years. Recently, he invited your webmaster to his law office for a tour of the collection. MTA roll signs are mounted throughout the office. They are from the 1967-1978 period when color coding was first used in [...]
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BICENTENNIAL JOHNNY PUMPS. The remnants of the Spirit of ’76.
August 30, 2003 -
MEDALLIONS OF THE HEMISPHERE. Avenue of the Americas country signs.
December 3, 2002You’re not supposed to call it 6th Avenue, you know. 6th Avenue has a rather involved history. It has been extended both northward and southward and has been renamed twice! In 1945, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia renamed Sixth Avenue along its entire length south of Central Park “Avenue of the Americas.” Some histories indicate it was done in [...]
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THE ALSO RANS. They ran for office too…and if they run again, their campaign stickers are still there!
November 19, 2002The streets of New York bear continued witness to the many failed political campaigns of years past. Though they’ve lost, they live to challenge another day. And, their campaign signage is still there just in case they do! On this Forgotten NY page, we’ll see just a few. Rick Lazio waves to supporters during his [...]
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NO BUSINESS LIKE OLD BUSINESS. A look at decades-old signage around town. We’ll discuss barber poles, The Matrix and the Mod Squad along the way.
May 26, 2001A walk in the neighborhoods of any of the five boroughs reveals the practical and pragmatic philosophy…’if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ You’ll see some signs that have been in place for fifty years or more, serving generations of customers, or some that still serve their now-deceased concerns… College Bakery, Court Street, Cobble Hill, [...]
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TAKE A LIQ-IN’ AND KEEP ON TICKIN’. New York’s ancient neon liquor store signs.
April 16, 2000There’s no real story here. But for years, I’ve noticed that many liquor stores in the five boroughs have the same signage they must have had decades ago…whether they’re ceramic, painted signs or my favorite, NEON. It must just be a matter of the signs doing the same job they’ve done for many years doing [...]
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REGIS PHILBIN AVENUE. Who wants to be on a street sign?
March 29, 2000“Ok, we’re back and here it comes for ONE MILLION DOLLARS! Which former Joey Bishop sidekick, cookbook author, singer and fitness video auteur not only has the most popular show on ABC in decades, but his very own street in the Bronx?” A. Sonny Fox; B. Durward Kirby; C. Robert Q. Lewis; D. Regis Philbin? [...]
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GRAND OLE OPPY
March 20, 2000Back in the 1940s, every once in awhile, subway cars and stations would become sort of unkempt, and people could be less than courteous. Maybe there’d be a candy wrapper on the platform. Maybe a gent would forget to hold a door for a lady. And shockingly, every so often, someone would try to sneak [...]
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ONE-WAY EVOLUTION. One-way signs through the years.
September 27, 1999Just as New York City’s street signs have evolved and changed over the years, so have its one-way signs, which have undergone a three-part metamorphosis in the years I have been observing their design. Each change has made the one-way sign, a vital element in traffic control, more and more visible for motor vehicles. It’s [...]
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THE CORNER at 6th Avenue and 24th Street
September 4, 1999At first glance, the brick building at 6th Avenue and 24th Street doesn’t appear to be all that unusual, other than the presence of the longtime strip joint Billy’s Topless on the bottom floor. But before going inside to ogle the girls, take a look at the two signs chiseled into the building on the corner, and [...]
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ODDS AND ENDS
January 15, 1999On this page, we’ll take a look at some of the unusual sights in the subways that don’t fit into any other category… The 181st Street station (IND, A line) is unusual for a couple of reasons: first, it is among the deepest subway stations in the system, and second, it has this rather unique and [...]
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STATION HOUSES
January 15, 1999Some NYC subway stations actually have above-ground station buildings. Quite frequently these houses will appear at subway stations that have been parts of actual railroad lines in the past, such as the D line between Sheeepshead Bay and Avenue H, or the #5 between 180th St. and Dyre Avenue. Other times, though, a station house was placed at a [...]
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Ancient SUBWAY SIGNS
December 24, 1998One of the great joys of the NYC subway system is that so much of its rich heritage is still on display for all to see. The preservation of its ancient terra-cotta platform signs is already well-documented. Here, we’ll take a look at the various ways the city marks subway stations at street level. The removal of [...]
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OUTDATED SIGNS
October 14, 1998On this page we’ll show you a couple of ancient signs that pointed you to the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad, as well as a few ancient oddities that can’t be classified in any one section. This tiled sign points to the PATH train in the IND station at 14th Street and Sixth Avenue. The PATH, which stands for [...]
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SUBWAY SIGNS TO NOWHERE
August 8, 1998This sign, one of two located on the mezzanine of the IRT East 149th Street Station where the 2,4 and 5 lines meet, points the way to the New York Central Lines, today’s Metro-North. However, there is no Metro-North station at the Grand Concourse and East 149th Street; the closest station is the Melrose station, 12 blocks [...]
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THE SUBWAYS REMEMBER with ancient signage
June 7, 1998Signs on subway platforms sometimes have a way of preserving for posterity the former names of streets under which they ran, or former names of station stops. This is especially true in Queens, along the 7 line: 33rd (Rawson St), 40th St (Lowery St), 46th St (Bliss St), 52nd St (Lincoln Ave) and 69th St (Fisk [...]
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STOPLIGHT CLASSICS
May 28, 1998NYC stoplight design has pretty much been stuck in neutral since the 1960s, when cylindrical posts holding three-light stoplights as well as WALK/DONT WALK signs first appeared on street corners, joining the more massive guy-wired lamps at major corners that first appeared in the 1950s. This page will take a look at the stoplight posts [...]
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CLIFTON AVENUE, West Maspeth
May 3, 1998In a very old section of Queens now called West Maspeth, formerly called Laurel Hill, can be found an old house on the corner of the two streets formerly known as Clifton Avenue (46th Street) and Waters Avenue (54th Road). The house has two very old street signs carrying the streets’ old names. (12/97) Waters Avenue [...]
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PORCELAIN SIGNS
April 2, 1998Scattered throughout the five boroughs are the remnants of the previous generation of street signs that predated the familiar green and white signs of today. Porcelain signs featuring raised letters were installed in the 40s and 50s. I’ve seen most of them in Brooklyn, but I recall some in the Bronx and Staten Island as [...]