Forgotten New York is in Association with the Greater Astoria Historical Society, a non-profit organization supported by the Long Island City community.
The Who, the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Costello, Don Budge, Rod Laver, Billie Jean King and Jimmy Connors have all held court at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium at 69th Avenue and Burns Street, Queens. The U.S Open was held here for many decades before it decamped to Louis Armstrong Stadium in 1978 and later to Arthur [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Tagged with: Forest Hills Queens
Actually this quick walk came in July 2007, but I’ve been caught short of new material of late. That’s OK — I always have a big backlog of material, although it’s been shrinking somewhat lately — the winter weather and sun angle has kept the Forgotten camera indoors for the most part. So, as I write [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Tagged with: Forest Hills Queens
Your webmaster is a diurnal animal. This wasn’t always the case — throughout the 1980s I worked the late shift and braved the darkest recesses of the graffiti scarred IRT on the way home every morning at 3 or 4 AM. Since that time I have evolved into a reverse vampire and am only rarely caught [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Tagged with: Forest Hills Queens
I 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, [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Signs Tagged with: Forest Hills Queens
Your webmaster will admit straight out that autumn is my favorite time of year; I somehow make it through every summer while waiting for the time when I can wear a jacket again. I feel naked without one. Other than Coney Island I haven’t been to a beach in decades. My skin is translucent. I check [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Tagged with: Forest Hills
Cord Meyer Jr. (1854-1910) was the original developer of Elmhurst and Forest Hills. In 1893 Meyer, a successful banker and lawyer, purchased acreage in what was then called Newtown from British retail magnate Samuel Lord of Lord & Taylor fame and proceeded to lay out a street pattern that still exists today, built utilities and [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Neighborhoods Tagged with: Forest Hills Queens
CONTINUED FROM PART 1 WHEN IT reaches Union Turnpike, the Jackie Robinson Parkway and the Van Wyck Expressway in Kew Gardens, Queens Blvd. begins its slow process of winding down. Quiet Briarwood and Maple Grove Cemetery are all that lie between the 10-lane behemoth and its Waterloo at Jamaica Avenue. The cottages and homes of Kew [...]
Categorized in: Street Scenes Walks Tagged with: Briarwood Forest Hills Jamaica Kew Gardens Queens
WHETHER it wants to admit it or not, the Department of Transportation’s main function is the movement of motor vehicles; to enable them to move as quickly as possible. That means synchronized stoplights that are calibrated to provide uninterrupted passage for a lengthy distance. Such traffic lights often provide two minutes of green for the vehicles [...]
Categorized in: Street Scenes Walks Tagged with: Elmhurst Forest Hills Queens Rego Park Sunnyside
ATTENTION has been paid, and rightly so, to the NYC subway system on its 100th anniversary in 2004, but there’s an even older transit system in New York existing alongside the subways,whose stations are neglected somewhat by the agency that’s in charge of running it. Truth be told, the 171-year-old (in 2005) Long Island Rail Road, [...]
TO FIND RARE BEASTS, you have to know what environment they thrive in. The same principle applies to locating species of ancient NYC streetlighting…they like to hang out in the darkest corners of the city, where the Department of Transportation can’t find them. Lamp designs that are long extinct in bright sunlight are often found [...]
Categorized in: Street Lamps Tagged with: Brighton Beach Bronx Brooklyn Bushwick Forest Hills Greenwich Village High Line Manhattan Ozone Park Queens Riverdale
The Rockaway Line is a mighty good road, the Rockaway Line is the road to ride, to paraphrase the old song. Or rather, it used to be the road to ride, since no passenger trains have run on it since 1962. The Long Island Railroad’s Rockaway Beach Branch diverged from the LIRR’s Main Line in Rego [...]
Categorized in: Subways & Trains Tagged with: Forest Hills Ozone Park Queens Rego Park Woodhaven
Continued from Part 1 This time, our survey of little-noticed Queens alleyways takes us from gritty, concrete-enveloped Long Island City all the way east to bucolic, rural Little Neck–which could pass for an upstate village or a small North Shore town, which, of course, it is! So let’s start in Long Island City and work [...]
Categorized in: Alleys Neighborhoods Tagged with: Astoria Boker Briarwood Charlotte College Point Cornell Corona Elmhurst Flushing Forest Hills Glendale Hawtree Linneaus Little Neck Queens Ridgewood South Jamaica Sunnyside Whitestone
Queens, in many ways, is the youngest of the five boroughs. It became a part of the city when its widely separated towns joined with the Bronx, Brooklyn, Staten Island and Manhattan in 1898 to become the five boroughs. Part of Queens, though, wanted nothing to do with New York City and so the Queens [...]
Categorized in: Alleys Tagged with: Astoria Briarwood College Point Corona Elmhurst Flushing Forest Hills Glendale Little Neck Queens Ridgewood South Jamaica Sunnyside Whitestone
Ten-lane, pedal to the metal Woodhaven Boulevard in Queens … once a country lane dominated by horses and carriages? It’s true. And, the evidence is still there in plain view. Look closely at this 1915 Hammond map of the Middle Village area of Queens, compare it to a present city map, and you will see [...]
Categorized in: Street Scenes Tagged with: Forest Hills Queens
NYC 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 [...]
Categorized in: Signs Street Lamps Tagged with: Auburndale Central Park Far Rockaway Forest Hills Grand Central Terminal Manhattan Ozone Park Queens St. Albans
