Forgotten New York is in Association with the Greater Astoria Historical Society, a non-profit organization supported by the Long Island City community.
The slotted Donald Deskey lamppost was introduced on Broadway and Murray Street in 1958, and by the early 1960s they were being installed by the thousands on main avenues, side streets, parkways and expressways. The two slots on the shaft made it adaptable to hold fixtures like curved streetlamp masts, its most frequent use, but [...]
Categorized in: One Shots Street Lamps Tagged with: Manhattan Upper East Side
This apartment building at 3rd Avenue and East 94th Street leaves no doubt about what the cross-street is. Looking at this sign, I think about typographic styles, especially the one used for the ’9.’ It occurs to me that no one writes or creates number 9′s like this anymore, typographically speaking, with that especially small [...]
Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Manhattan Upper East Side
I had always been under the impression that Cherokee Place, between East 77th and 78th Streets near the FDR Drive, was cut through when the Drive was constructed here in the early 1940s, but the short alley has actually been here since 1912. It was named for the Cherokee Club, an East 79th Street headquarters [...]
Categorized in: One Shots Tagged with: Manhattan Upper East Side
I was desultorily ambling south on Lexington Avenue on the Monday afternoon of August 2, 2010 after a meeting with the director of the Museum of the City of New York on 5th and 104th (if my aims at the meeting bear fruit, I’ll let you know*, but there’s no reason to even hint at what may transpire, [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Street Lamps Tagged with: Manhattan Upper East Side
During explorations of Lascoff’s Drugstore, the remains of the German-American neighborhood Yorkville, and the old signage of the Lexington Candy Shop a couple of winters ago, ForgottenFan Vicki and I also discovered the remnants of a Hungarian-American enclave on East 82nd Street in the vicinity of 3rd and Lexington Avenues. I shouldn’t have been surprised – the Upper East Side [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Tagged with: Manhattan Upper East Side
ForgottenFan Victoria and I were on Cherokee Place (I’ll let you rack your brains for a minute to figure out where that is) and East 77th and 78th Streets in spring 1978 to take a look at the Shively Sanitary Apartments, now known as simply the Cherokee. It’s a magnificent building constructed with plenty of light [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Tagged with: Manhattan Upper East Side
Having read yesterday’s Slice (that ran on Feb. 5, 2008) on Lascoff’s Pharmacy on Lexington and East 82nd, in which I committed logorrhea regarding the Upper East Side’s neighborhoody atmosophere in which the chain stores haven’t yet taken command, a ForgottenFan told me that there were 16 or more Starbucks on the Upper East Side alone. Not [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Tagged with: candy Lexington Upper East Side
This time, as we open the ancient New York City Street Necrology with its cracked, crumbling leather cover, a dogeared page with running, streaming ink and stains from lord knows what plops open, and there, revealed on the verso, is…Fourth Avenue, and there on the recto is Avenue A. Today, Fourth Avenue is the shortest [...]
Categorized in: Street Necrology Tagged with: Kips Bay Madison Square Manhattan Upper East Side
Nestled in prosperous Murray Hill on East 36th Street between 3rd and Lexington is one of the few alleys of the midtown area. Sniffen Court was constructed between 1850 and 1860 and consists of ten handsome brick carriage houses protected behind a locked iron gate. The carriage houses were built by architect John Sniffen and [...]
Categorized in: Alleys Tagged with: Cooper Square Hell’s Kitchen Kips Bay Manhattan Murray Hill Times Square Turtle Bay Upper East Side
