Forgotten New York is a program of the Greater Astoria Historical Society, a non-profit organization supported by the Long Island City community.
I was dazedly shambling about in Bensonhurst in August, mad with the unbearable 82-degree heat, and in a momentary spark of lucidity, I noticed a tailor shop across from the 79th Street el station at New Utrecht and 17th Avenues – more specifically, its one-handed clock, of which more later. It wasn’t till months later [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Tagged with: Bensonhurst Brooklyn
I mean, one of these days, to walk 86th Street from the Narrows to Gravesend. It is the main east-west street in southwest Brooklyn, and contains many secrets of old. I grew up three blocks from 86th, and so, when communities were more tight-knit, I knew the butchers, the bakers and the candle stick makers [...]
Categorized in: Walks Tagged with: Bensonhurst Brooklyn
On the second leg of my quick Bensonhurst trip, I wandered down 84th Street into the heart of ancient New Utrecht. Brooklyn, now co-terminous with Kings County, was once just one, albeit the most important, of six towns that made up Kings County, delineated by British rulers in 1683. “KIngs” refers to the Restoration British monarch at the time, King [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Neighborhoods Tagged with: Bensonhurst Brooklyn New Utrecht
I lived in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn for 35 years, the last time in 1993 when I gravitated to Queens. I now live on the borderline of Queens and Nassau County. I work in Nassau and have many friends in Nassau; yet, since I do not have a drivers’ license, I’ll never be of Nassau, unless that situation changes. [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Neighborhoods Tagged with: Bensonhurst Brooklyn
Your webmaster lived in Bay Ridge between 1957 and 1993 (with an neighborhoodus interruptus in Dyker Heights in 1990-1991) and yet, the adjacent region to the east, Bensonhurst, the vast area between 14th Avenue, 65th Street and the Belt Parkway and Bay Parkway and Stillwell Avenue) largely remains unplumbed territory for me. I had had [...]
Categorized in: Roads Street Scenes Walks Tagged with: 18th Avenue Bensonhurst Brooklyn Kensington
