Visit Queens in the years 1920 to 1950!
Forgotten New York was the first-ever recipient of Outstanding New York City Website by the Guides Association of New York City in March 2015!
Forgotten New York is associated with the Greater Astoria Historical Society
200 sq ft. $500/month office - avail now!
Freshly painted, carpeted, new restrooms, professional/non-profit floor, most convenient location in western Queens, shopping restaurants across street,
includes shelving and desk, new carpet, and new air conditioner.
Elevator; Four blocks from N, R, W, M service. 15 minutes from mid-town. 2 blocks from Kaufman Arts Center 
Now in its tenth year, Forgotten New York The Book is your bible to a New York City the other guidebooks won't touch.
Fordham, a bustling shopping district in center-west Bronx, was named for a small settlement along the Harlem River begun in 1669 but later devastated by the Revolutionary War. Belmont takes its name from tobacco magnate Jacob Lorillard’s estate; the Lorillards owned nearly all of what would become The Bronx Zoo, the NY Botanical Garden, and […]
At Fordham Road and the Grand Concourse in 1999, I passed two dead stores in the same building. For decades this was the flagship location of Alexander’s, the department store founded in 1928 by New Yorker Alexander Farkas. After the Grand Concourse branch opened in 1933 it became the largest company store in NYC. Farkas, […]
Edgar Allan Poe was a man about town in New York in the 1840s: he lived in several different locales, and while during his Bronx tenure he wasn’t officially a New Yorker since Fordham wasn’t a part of NYC until 1874, we’ll overlook that technicality. Poe was born in Boston and lived in Providence, Baltimore, […]
Categorized in: Neighborhoods Tagged with: Bronx Edgar Allan Poe Fordham
One of my favorites in Fordham is the Dollar Savings Bank tower on the east side of the Grand Concourse north of Fordham Road. This Bronx landmark was built by Halsey, McCormack and Helmer, who also built Brooklyn’s answer to the Empire State Building, the Williamsburg Savings Bank, now known as One Hanson Place. Like […]
Plenty of archaeologists look for arrowheads, remnants of Native American populations of centuries before our own. At Forgotten New York I seek arrowheads as well — by which I mean the uneven six-sided signs installed throughout town that direct traffic to expressways or bridges — they were the GPS devices of their day. These signs […]
Categorized in: One Shots Signs Tagged with: Bronx Fordham Mount Eden
I got off the #1 uptown at 225th Street and wasn’t sure where I was going, which some say has been my problem all these years. I would up lollygagging around Kingsbridge Heights, Fordham, Bedford Park and Norwood, even briefly entering Woodlawn Cemetery before returning to town via the D train at the end of […]
Categorized in: Walks Tagged with: Bronx Fordham Marble Hill Norwood
Continuing my halting, wavering, and occasionally incoherent way up the Grand Boulevard and Concourse, the spine of the western Bronx broached in Grand Concourse Part 1, my first stop was the grand pasha of Bronx entertainment meccas, Loew’s Paradise and East 188th, just south of Fordham Road. Of the dozens of movie theatres in 20th […]
Categorized in: Walks Tagged with: Bronx Fordham Grand Concourse
From the ForgottenBook: Mosholu Parkway is among the many Native American place names that have been woven into the city’s fabric. Mo-sho-lu, or “smooth stones” was the Algonquin name of a rural brook running through the heart of what became the Bronx’ Spuyten Duyvil and Riverdale neighborhoods. In 1888, Mosholu Parkway was laid out as […]
Categorized in: Street Scenes Tagged with: Bronx Fordham Norwood Pelham Bay
As a rule, you will not find any munchkins, witches or flying monkeys in the Bronx. But there is a yellow brick road, and this one looks like it’s still got its original yellow bricks (Queens’ Stockholm Street‘s yellow bricks are a loving recreation of the original). Dorothea Place, a cul de sac on Marion Avenue just […]
Categorized in: Alleys Forgotten Slices Tagged with: Bronx Fordham
Title card: 910 Grand Concourse at East 163 St I FIRST WALKED the Bronx’s Grand Concourse on July 18, 1999, on ForgottenTour 2. It was 100 degrees, the tour split up into two factions, there was a Dominican Day Parade, a thunderstorm, and some of us wound up in a bar on Bainbridge Avenue watching […]
Categorized in: Roads Street Scenes Tagged with: Bronx Fordham Grand Concourse Mount Eden
Like the other boroughs, The Bronx had its own system of trolleys and tracks, the longest being one by the Manhattan Railway Company that ran on Melrose and Webster Avenues in the Melrose, Morrisania, Mt. Hope, Tremont, Fordham, Bedford Park, and Norwood; it continued along Gun Hill and White Plains Roads all the way to […]
On two separate trips, in the summers of 1999 and 2000, I walked the Grand Boulevard and Concourse, which marches north from the Major Deegan Expressway to Mosholu Parkway through Mott Haven, Concourse Village, Mount Eden, Mount Hope (the Concourse is constructed on a hill), Fordham, and Bedford Park. Eleven lanes wide from 161st Street […]
Categorized in: Neighborhoods Roads Street Scenes Tagged with: Bronx Fordham Grand Concourse Mount Eden
The Bronx is not to be outdone when it comes to obscure alleys and lanes. Some are in leaf-filled enclaves like Riverdale and others are to be found in teeming districts like Fordham. Wherever in the Bronx they are, each has its own story to tell. Shrady Place Doctor George Shrady, editor of the New […]
Categorized in: Alleys Tagged with: Baychester Bronx City Island Eastchester Fordham Kingsbridge Heights Morris Park Morrisania Norwood Riverdale Wakefield Westchester Square