Forgotten New York is in Association with the Greater Astoria Historical Society, a non-profit organization supported by the Long Island City community.
Continued from PART 1 Continuing my trip from Straus Square on the Lower East Side to Midtown’s Penn Station… WAYFARING MAP: Seward Park to Penn Station 222 Bowery just south of Prince might look a little out of place — there are not many Queen Anne-style 1884 brick buildings on this stretch, where many [...]
Categorized in: Walks Tagged with: Litttle Italy Lower East Side Manhattan Noho Penn Station Union Square
I haven’t done as many long-form specials with as many as 100 pictures per page of late. In the Age of Twitter, people are increasingly impatient with these long treatises and tend to lose interest. Also, the winter winds play havoc with my tear ducts and I frequently have tears streaking down my face when [...]
Categorized in: Walks Tagged with: Chinatown Little Italy Lower East Side Manhattan Noho Penn Station Union Square
Although the story of young George Washington, the cherry tree and his father is apocryphal, the first president is associated with cherries. Washington lived for a short time during his presidency at #3 Cherry Street, though the mansion is long gone and so is #3 Cherry Street: it formerly diverged from Pearl Street just north [...]
Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Lower East Side Manhattan
Hopefully, Sol Moscot [formerly 118 Orchard, at Delancey, shown here] will take this iconic sign with them when they move directly across Delancey Street, to 108 Orchard. Founded on Rivington Street in 1915 after founder Hyman started selling eyeglasses from a pushcart in 1899, Moscot had occupied this location since 1935. 2/6/13
Categorized in: One Shots Signs Tagged with: Lower East Side Manhattan
January 30, 2013 is President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 131st birthday, and what better way to celebrate in a FNY manner than to finally nail down the source, or the southern end, of where the Drive begins — at least as far as the Department of Transportation determines it. For me, that’s always been a gray [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Tagged with: Lower East Side Manhattan
There are a number of short streets along the East River from the Financial District northeast to Corlear’s Hook, where the East River turns north, called “slips.” I’ve pored over maps of other cities over the years, and in the United States at least, “slip” seems to be a unique appellation to streets in NYC, [...]
Categorized in: Alleys Walks Tagged with: Financial District Lower East Side Manhattan
On a walk up the Lower East Side in January 2013, I encountered an anachronistic building that I either hadn’t seen or hadn’t noticed before, on Madison Street a few doors away from St. James Place. It’s a tiny two-story dormered building — however, it’s not too small that it doesn’t have two separate doors [...]
Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Lower East Side Manhattan
In 2005 I found these vintage wall poster ads for Hersh’s kosher wine, the candidacy of Assemblyman Louis DeSalvio, a rally for Mayor Vincent Impellitteri and more. The NYC Tenement Museum had occupied the ground floor of the building on the corner of Orchard and Broome and the signs had been recently uncovered after more than [...]
Categorized in: Ads One Shots Tagged with: Lower East Side Manhattan
Stanton Street follows a parallel path with its partner, Rivington Street, from the Bowery east to Chrystie, Forsyth east to Pitt. There are various pieces of it leftover as walkways in the Gompers and Baruch Houses, constructed in the 1940s. Many streets in this neighborhood are named for associates of colonial-era James de Lancey, who owned most [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Tagged with: Lower East Side Manhattan
Rivington is a street in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, in general running from the Bowery east to Pitt Street. In 2010 it exists in three separate pieces, a one-block stretch between Bowery and Chrystie, a main section from Forsyth east to Pitt, and a small piece remaining at Columbia. It was originally laid out as one [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Tagged with: Lower East Side
You’ve all heard of DUMBO, the formerly forbidding part of Brooklyn that’s Down Under The Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridge Overpasses. The Mother Borough also has its own area between the bridges, and, with apologies to the venerable typefont, I have dubbed it BEMBO, or Between the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridge Overpasses. Original, I know. Manhattan’s area between [...]
Categorized in: Neighborhoods Tagged with: Al Smith Civic Center Lower East Side Manhattan
Having visited Vinegar Hill, Brooklyn and pretty much found it just like it was when I first photographed it in 1998 (except for a missing church here and a new luxury crap condo there) I then visited another FNY old favorite a few weeks later – a rusted lamppost in a narrow strip, of unclaimed territory between a park [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Street Lamps Tagged with: Lower East Side Manhattan
EV Grieve has some troubling news this week…Peter’s of Madison Street, which featured a classic, old school painted sign, has closed, apparently for good because the interior has been cleaned out. Admittedly, I have never bought anything in Peter’s but I passed by often and have almost as often snapped this tremendous sign, which really should [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Tagged with: Lower East Side Manhattan
I 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 [...]
Categorized in: Signs Tagged with: Lower East Side Manhattan Orchard Street
PHOTOS BY GARY FONVILLE Forgotten NY correspondent It’s the most natural thing in the world. We all have to go sometime. NYC, though, would pretty much not acknowledge that fact. While various cities nationwide have installed high-tech, self-flushing toilets that do everything except wipe, it’s well, sorta beneath NYC to even flirt with the concept. To [...]
Categorized in: Street Scenes Tagged with: Bronx Harlem Lower East Side Manhattan Morrisania Mount Eden Pelham Bay Upper West Side
As many Bishops Crooks lampposts that are still standing…there are legions of these old warriors that are no more. As late as the early to mid 1980s, the streets of New York City were still greatly populated by these poles that imitated episcopal staffs. They kept a Little Old New York ambience wherever they stood. [...]
Categorized in: Street Lamps Tagged with: Bishop Crooks Financial District Grand Central Terminal Greenwich Village Lower East Side Manhattan
The Lower East Side of Manhattan, roughly defined by Houston Street on the north, the East River on the east and south, and by the Manhattan Bridge and the Bowery on the west, known in story and song as a teeming, bustling magnet for immigrants in the 19h and 20th Centuries, actually has a long [...]
Categorized in: Street Necrology Tagged with: Lower East Side Manhattan
Delancey Street, on the Lower East Side, is a repository of elderly, fading advertisements from bygone eras. Sharp-eyed observers will see this ad for Gold Medal Flour on this building set back from Delancey. I can’t quite make out the script writing above the sign, which has been weathered into illegibility. Sometimes two ads will be placed on [...]
Categorized in: Ads Tagged with: Lower East Side Manhattan
This abandoned, rusty bishops crook lamppost in an empty lot in the Lower East Side is an important one, because not only is it an increasingly rare cast iron remnant…but it signifies a neighborhood that is no longer there. Years ago, the Lower East Side wasn’t dominated by housing projects like the Baruch, Seward Park, LaGuardia, [...]
Categorized in: Street Lamps Tagged with: Lower East Side Manhattan
