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.
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 [...]
Word came to my unbelieving ears that some younger viewers of the Grammy Awards ceremony in February 2012 were stumped when the sprightly figure of Paul McCartney appeared on their television screens. Never before had they been forced to deal with anyone quite this old, and never having heard of the Beatles or pop rock [...]
The Swingin’ 60s were a fun time to grow up in Brooklyn, especially for kids like me, with a perplexing penchant for noticing changes in lampposts as well as subway signage. One day in 1962, the whole neighborhood’s 1920s-era Corvingtons had been hauled away and slot-shafted, curved neck Donald Deskey posts appeared. Likewise, in 1969 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
December 2011: It happens every Christmas. A giant conifer is sacrificed for the Rockefeller Center tree-lighting featuring the pop teen of the moment; trampling crowds worshiping the God of Commerce; Bing and Fred on TV and Bing and Bowie on Youtube. Also accompanying the fanfare is the annual running of the classic subway cars on [...]
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. [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
My interest in subway mosaics has been re-fired again, as it is every few years. I have a new admiration for the intricate mosaics that were assembled on station walls and signage in the subways between about 1914 and 1928 (after the initial Beaux Arts terra cotta and mosaics done in original IRT stations from [...]
HOME | ADS | ALLEYS | CEMETERIES | COBBLESTONES | FORGOTTENSLICES | LAMPS | NEIGHBORHOODS | SIGNS | STREET NECROLOGY | STREET SCENES | SUBWAYS & TRAINS | TROLLEYS | YOU’D NEVER BELIEVE YOU’RE IN NYC | LINKS | FORGOTTENTOURS | SEARCH | FORGOTTENSTUFF | QUEENS CRAP | FRANK JUMP’S FADING ADS | OUT OF TOWN | BOWERY BOYS | ALL CITY NY | LOST CITY | VANISHING NY | FNY THE BOOK/ERRATA |CONDENSED POP STATIONS OF THE N.Y.W.B (Dyre Avenue Line) Between East 180th Street and Dyre Avenue near the Westchester county line, the IRT #5 runs along an abandoned railroad, the New York, Westchester & [...]
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 [...]
New York City opened up a second section of its only major rail to trails project, the former West Side Freight Railroad (popularly called the High Line) in June 2011 from West 20th to West 30th Street, leaving only a short section from West 30th to West 34th undeveloped. The city does hope to open that remaining section [...]
The 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 [...]
CONTINUED 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 [...]
FORGOTTEN 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 [...]
At one time, railroad stations, especially terminals in large cities, were thought of as magnificent gateways or portals to new realms, welcoming travelers from far and wide to places they had only read about in books, or places of inspiration for commuters from far-off locales: though their work may be drudgery, they could aspire to something [...]
FORGOTTEN NEW YORK HarperCollins,ORDER from Amazon: paperback or hardcover FORGOTTEN NEW YORK LONG SLEEVE T SHIRTS and more! I am fond of speculating about possibilities that I will never experience. In future centuries, if we don’t snuff ourselves, there is going to be quite the sightseeing market on those satellites [...]
FORGOTTEN NEW YORK HarperCollins, ORDER from Amazon: paperback or hardcover FORGOTTEN NEW YORK LONG SLEEVE T SHIRTS and more! My fascination with the NYC subway’s infrastructure continues unabated and my love affair with the subways remains unrequited. That is made clear every weekend, when the MTA runs most lines completely differently [...]
FORGOTTEN NEW YORK HarperCollins, ORDER from Amazon: paperback or hardcover FORGOTTEN NEW YORK LONG SLEEVE T SHIRTS and more! PHOTOS AND DESCRIPTIONS BY GARY FONVILLE There are many two- level stations in the NYC subway system. However, this is one where express trains are on one level and local ones are [...]
FORGOTTEN NEW YORK HarperCollins, ORDER from Amazon: paperback or hardcover FORGOTTEN NEW YORK T SHIRTS and more! While recuperating from heart surgery in June 2009 I was curious about the brand-new South Ferry station at the south end of the IRT #1 train — the first new station to open in NYC since 1989. [...]
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2HOME | ADS | ALLEYS | CEMETERIES | COBBLESTONES | FORGOTTENSLICES | LAMPS | NEIGHBORHOODS | SIGNS | STREET NECROLOGY | STREET SCENES | SUBWAYS & TRAINS | TROLLEYS | YOU’D NEVER BELIEVE YOU’RE IN NYC | LINKS | FORGOTTENTOURS | SEARCH | FORGOTTENSTUFF | QUEENS CRAP | FRANK JUMP’S FADING ADS | OUT OF TOWN | BOWERY BOYS | ALL CITY NY | LOST CITY | VANISHING NY | LONG ISLAND ODDITIES | FNY THE BOOK/ERRATA | CONDENSED POP CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 Approaching Brooklyn College Passing Glenwood Road (above left) and Utica Avenue (right) we passed some large tanks owned by Favorite Plastics, a manufacturer of polyethylene film. Glenwood [...]
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A recent topic thread in Subchat, the subway blog, made me revisit one of FNY’s long-cherished talismans, the remainders of the old Long Island Rail Road’s “Evergreen” branch, which was a one-track freight line that ceased operation, I believe, sometime in the 1980s. In the long ago and far away, it was a ctually a passenger line [...]
FORGOTTEN NEW YORK HarperCollins, ORDER from Amazon: paperback or hardcover FORGOTTEN NEW YORK HOODIES and more! With little warning or fanfare, the MTA is about to shutter one of its most venerable stations to passenger traffic in just a couple weeks [as of December 2008], the South Ferry terminal, as [...]
In September 2007 FNY, on the Lullaby of Broadway Slice, chronicled the impending demolition and restoration of the Broadway (Flushing) Long Island Rail Road station. Between 1993 (preceding that actually) and 2007, the MTA had allowed the station to become a horror show of crumbling platforms and fences as well as urine-soaked waiting sheds. Things got so bad [...]
FORGOTTEN NEW YORK HarperCollins, ORDER from Amazon: paperback or hardcover FORGOTTEN NEW YORK HOODIES and more! BY GARY FONVILLE The New York City subway system was planned with a lot of standardization. Standardization was very practical for subway planners and financial backers: if each station was custom designed, costs would [...]
By GARY FONVILLE FNY has highlighted trains and stations on the original IRT line. This time FNY will take a look at the most overlooked structures of the subway system. These edfices housed critical components of its power distribution system — the substations and the original power house on Manhattan’s west side. The IRT’s planners [...]
Downtown Brooklyn has a large, sprawling underground station, the Borough Hall-Court-Montague Street complex, consisting of three separate subway lines constructed at different times. There’s the venerable Borough Hall IRT station opened in May 1908, the very first subway station in Brooklyn; the other Borough Hall station, serving the IRT 7th Avenue line, opened in April 1919; [...]
HOME| LAMPS | SUBWAYS & TRAINS | ADS | TROLLEYS | SIGNS | COBBLESTONES | STREET SCENES | YOU’D NEVER BELIEVE YOU’RE IN NYC | LINKS | ALLEYS | NECROLOGY | CEMETERIES | NEIGHBORHOODS | FORGOTTENSLICES | FORGOTTENTOURS | SEARCH |FORGOTTENBOOK DIARY | FORGOTTENSTUFF | QUEENS CRAP | FRANK JUMP’S FADING ADS FORGOTTEN NEW YORK HarperCollins,ORDER from Amazon: paperback or hardcover FORGOTTEN NEW YORK HOODIES and more! From the ForgottenBook: The New York Botanical Garden and New York Zoological Park (known to all as the Bronx Zoo) are the two main divisions of Bronx [...]
October 4, 1969. The Mets beat the Atlanta Braves in Atlanta 9-5, beginning a ‘miraculous’ postseason run for the Amazin’s in which they won 7 of 8 games against the NL West Champion Braves and AL Champion Baltimore Orioles, winning the World Series. While the USA had put two astronauts on the moon in July, [...]
Despite abortive efforts, mostly in the 1920s and 30s, to connect the BMT subway from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, the NYC subway has never penetrated Staten Island, which has its own commuter rail line, Staten Island Railway, formerly a division of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. That doesn’t mean, however, that Staten Island is bereft of subway cars. Since 1985, [...]
One of the IRT’s “original 28″ stations constructed in 1904,Columbus Circle, has been a hodgepodge in appearance since the 1930s, when a transfer to the new IND running up Central Park West was instituted. For example, all the “Columbus Circle” terra cotta plaques ( seen above) were removed during the 1930s renovation. In addition, more than [...]
The Long Island Rail Road has been slowly doing restoration work on stations along the Port Washington branch, which runs a couple of blocks from your webmaster’s home in Little Neck. Work began in 1995 at Woodside, and since then some stations such as Auburndale have been completely replaced, while otehrs, like Bayside and Murray Hill, underwent [...]
HOME 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 SIRT: DON’T CALL IT A SUBWAY FORGOTTEN NEW YORK HarperCollins, ORDER from Amazon:paperback or hardcover FORGOTTEN NEW YORK [...]
HOME 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 [...]
HOME| LAMPS | SUBWAYS & TRAINS | ADS | TROLLEYS | SIGNS | COBBLESTONES | STREET SCENES | YOU’D NEVER BELIEVE YOU’RE IN NYC | LINKS | ALLEYS | NECROLOGY | CEMETERIES | NEIGHBORHOODS |FORGOTTENBLOG | FORGOTTENTOURS | SEARCH | FORGOTTENBOOK DIARY | FORGOTTENSTUFF LIVING FOR THE CITY, PART 1 City Hall Park New York’s present City Hall was completed in 1811 and is the third City Hall overall. Though most of the surrounding park closest to City Hall itself was closed off to the public in the aftermath of [...]
EVEN though I have chronicled NYC’s lost, magnificent City Hall Station a number of times in Forgotten NY I had only visited once before, in a 1998 Transit Museum tour that occurred before Mayor Rudy Giuliani closed (presciently, it must be admitted) the old station to touring, fearing terrorism. I just went back again (7/06) for [...]
Original 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 [...]
Like 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 [...]
NOW HEAR THIS: the subway/MTA photo ban lives. Snapped a photo of a track indicator at Flatbush LIRR. With the renovations going on, these may soon vanish. Two cops rush over. One says, ‘tell me you didn’t just snap a photo.’ Demands camera, ID. Compels me to erase photo of track indicator and one of Morris [...]
YOU’VE felt the heat already. New York City’s 722 miles of subways are among the dirtiest, hottest and most woebegone in the country. Other, newer systems are cleaner, cooler and run better. I notice decor a great deal, though, and… I still favor New York’s subway stations over others I have been in in Chicago, Philly [...]
Mid-1980s IRT retro-kiosk at Astor Place, ca. 1985 In New York City, just about every subway entrance on the system’s 460-plus stations is somehow different, and that’s no mean feat. There are standard templates that different subway companies in the early days, the IRT, BMT, and IND, followed, but they’ve been blurred over the years, so [...]
Fresh from its 1930 IND and Brooklyn elevated car fantrip to Rockaway Park, the MTA continued its centennial celebration on October 23, 2004 with a run of elevated and subway cars from four decades, on the Brighton Line in Brooklyn in what it referred to as the “Cavalcade of Stars.” The IRT low-V car No. 5292, straight outta [...]
As Ray Davies puts it on a song on the Kinks’ Village Green Preservation Society LP, People take pictures of each other Just to prove that they really existed I’d seen photos of the wooden elevated cars that ran on Brooklyn Rapid Transit and later, Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit, and I had even stood in them in the NYC Transit Museum. [...]
In proposing a ban on all photography by “unauthorized” personnel on its property, the MTA is citing safety precautions in the Age of Terror. However, I’ve long suspected the real reason is that the MTA wants to protect its properties. There’s money to be made as the MTA markets images of its collection of now-100-year-old mosaics, [...]
HOME| LAMPS | SUBWAYS & TRAINS | ADS | TROLLEYS | SIGNS | COBBLESTONES | STREET SCENES | YOU’D NEVER BELIEVE YOU’RE IN NYC | LINKS | ALLEYS | NECROLOGY | CEMETERIES | FORGOTTENBLOG |FORGOTTENTOURS | SEARCH photo: Larry Fendrick. 1960s view at the barrel-vaulted Grand Central Terminal station, showing “future” redbirds. Already, vandals were marring the units The end of a 39-year run for R33 and R36 St. Louis Car Company units came on November 3, 2003 as the cars ran their final routes. [...]
HOME| LAMPS | SUBWAYS & TRAINS | ADS | TROLLEYS | SIGNS | COBBLESTONES | STREET SCENES | YOU’D NEVER BELIEVE YOU’RE IN NYC | LINKS | ALLEYS | NECROLOGY | CEMETERIES | FORGOTTENBLOG |FORGOTTENTOURS | SEARCH AS MANY Forgotten fans know, what attracts me to the subway is its iconography and signage that preserve styles from decades past; look in any Forgotten NY subway page devoted to old signage, and you will see that the MTA has unwittingly left a museum under [...]
AS WE celebrate the 100th anniversary of the New York City subway in 2004, just think about what 100 years has meant for the sheer variety of architectural styles that are represented down below. Next time you take the mugger mover, consider that the subways were built by three different companies that were once in [...]
DESCEND with us now to a place far below the tumult and cacophony of the New York City subway system, a place where dripping water and the scuttling of rats are the only sound. They are the abandoned platforms that abut tracks that will never see revenue subway service alight again. There are several [...]
HOME | ADS | ALLEYS | CEMETERIES | COBBLESTONES | FORGOTTENSLICES | LAMPS | NEIGHBORHOODS | SIGNS | STREET NECROLOGY | STREET SCENES | SUBWAYS & TRAINS | TROLLEYS | YOU’D NEVER BELIEVE YOU’RE IN NYC | LINKS | FORGOTTENTOURS | SEARCH | FORGOTTENSTUFF | QUEENS CRAP | FRANK JUMP’S FADING ADS | OUT OF TOWN | BOWERY BOYS | ALL CITY NY | LOST CITY | VANISHING NY | FNY THE BOOK/ERRATA |CONDENSED POP R4 car from MTA’s Transit Museum at Prospect Park LUDDISM isn’t Forgotten-NY’s thing. We don’t indulge in nostalgia because, when it comes down to it, the past sucks, in many ways. No [...]
BMT Chambers Street uptown platform, November 2003 That’s harsh, but the truth hurts sometimes. In many ways, the NYC subway system and the transportation network of which it is a part is set to make a renaissance in the next decade. A new Second Avenue Subway is supposed to break ground; expansions of the Flushing Line and [...]
HOME | ADS | ALLEYS | CEMETERIES | COBBLESTONES | FORGOTTENSLICES | LAMPS | NEIGHBORHOODS | SIGNS | STREET NECROLOGY | STREET SCENES | SUBWAYS & TRAINS | TROLLEYS | YOU’D NEVER BELIEVE YOU’RE IN NYC | LINKS | FORGOTTENTOURS | SEARCH | FORGOTTENSTUFF | QUEENS CRAP | FRANK JUMP’S FADING ADS | OUT OF TOWN | BOWERY BOYS | ALL CITY NY | LOST CITY | VANISHING NY | FNY THE BOOK/ERRATA |CONDENSED POP In the 1950s, despite the considerable charms of Marilyn Monroe, Bettie Page, Jane Russell and so many other voluptuous stars in film and magazines, it was decided in the architectural community that curves [...]
photo: Vincent Losinno The tracks of the Culver Shuttle await disposal at Cortelyou Road during demolition in August 1985 Fewer and fewer subway riders remember the Culver Shuttle, which ran between the 9th Avenue stop on the present W line, and the Ditmas Avenue stop, on the present F. The Shuttle ran between 1954 and [...]
THE END OF THE OLD STILLWELL AVENUE STATION LEFT: Inside the 1925 D-Type Triplex To celebrate ringing up Number 45 recently [those were he days!--2012] , Your Webmaster purchased a new G4 IMac, some new web software (which hopefully will result in a Forgotten revamp in the near future), an ice cream cake, and a ticket to [...]
In Queens, the Long Island Rail Road has certainly left remnants of its golden era of passenger trains. The Rockaway Branch is still there, waiting to be reactivated or converted into something worthwhile, and Kissena Corridor Park in Flushing traces the ancient LIRR connection from the main line through Creedmoor to the Port Washington branch (at about [...]
Imagine boarding the Long Island Railroad at Penn Station or Woodside and traveling east on the Port Washington Branch. After leaving the Shea Stadium platform, the train does notgo east past Main Street, Murray Hill, Broadway and the other stations of the branch, but rather veers northeast along the Flushing River; northwest near the old Flushing Airport; [...]
Though the MTA is relentlessly diligent when it comes to standardizing the signage of New York’s 468 subway stations, replacing the gorgeous enamel signs of old with standard black and white signs (and even those have substituted the old Akzidenz/Folio fonts they formerly used in favor of the universal Helvetica), seekers of relics of the [...]
BROOKLYN’S HARBORSIDE RAILROADS Years ago, the bustling Brooklyn waterfront,notably in Williamsburg, under the Manhattan Bridge, and Sunset Park, was home to a number of railroads that served busy shipping and freight interests. The past couple of decades, however, have seen active railroads dwindle down to only two. We’ll have a look at a pair of [...]
New York City used to be an el town. Beginning in the 1870s on Ninth Avenue in Manhattan, dozens of elevated lines rose and swift travel over traffic-clogged streets became a reality. Whole neighborhoods came into being as former farmland was converted for business and residential purposes at the coming of elevated trains. But in [...]
The Soho Building, on Greene Street between Spring and Prince Streets, is home to NYC’s most unusual subway map…despite the fact that no subways run underneath it and that the nearest subway station is two blocks away on Prince Street and Broadway (N/R). So where’s the subway map? … It’s embedded in the sidewalk. Unfortunately, I [...]
Back 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 [...]
When is a subway not a subway? When, of course, it’s an elevated. The elevated used to be king in Manhattan. The sun never saw lengthy stretches of Pearl Street, the Bowery, Greenwich Street, West Broadway, Columbus Avenue, First Avenue, Second Avenue, and Sixth, Eighth and Ninth Avenues, since they were hidden beneath elevated lines. [...]
The Fourth Avenue IND elevated station opened July 1, 1933, and has pretty much been allowed to decay ever since. In my opinion, the MTA doesn’t know what it has, since it combines classical and Art Deco styles in a seemingly effortless manner. Hopefully, the MTA will wake up soon and realize it has a [...]
The 18th Street Station (#4,5,6) was killed off in 1948 when the 14th St. platform was lengthened, making it redundant. Here are a couple of pictures from the now-abandoned, decrepit platform: The old “18″ plaque is barely visible behind graffiti vandals’ defacement. Underside of a staircase that once led to Park Avenue South and East 18th Street. [...]
On 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 [...]
Some 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 [...]
When the subways were first built in the early 1900s, they were blessed to have artists who put great care into the appearance of the stations and platforms. Beautiful signs and plaques were fashioned to tell the paying customers what stations they were in…and what the history of the region was. The Chambers Street station, completed [...]
Located under City Hall Park is the world’s most beautiful former subway station. It is located at the south edge of the loop that turns Lexington Avenue IRT locals (#6) around to the south of the Brooklyn Bridge station. It’s been closed to the public since 1945. It can be seen by staying on the #6 [...]
One 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 [...]
On 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 [...]
This 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 [...]
Signs 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 [...]
Every year, the New York City Transit Museum trots out a vintage subway train from the golden era of transit and takes it for a three-hour spin along the subways and elevateds of the New York City Subway system. One recent such trip [1998] saw the MTA bring out a BMT D-Type Triplex that first ran in 1927 along [...]
Next time you are taking the Times Square Shuttle toward Grand Central, walk toward the northern end of the platform. You’ll find a locked door with the word “Knickerbocker” above it. What could it be? Where does the door go? Behind the door is a stair which led up to the rear lobby of the Knickerbocker Hotel [...]
What’s that bricked up doorway with “Clinton Hall” carved above it on the southbound platform at the Astor Place (#6) station all about? Where did it go? There really was a Clinton Hall, and it’s still standing at the triangle of Astor Place, East 8th Street and Lafayette Street. When the Astor Place station was finished in [...]
