Forgotten New York is in Association with the Greater Astoria Historical Society, a non-profit organization supported by the Long Island City community.
Heavy snow in NYC winters is unpredictable. A series of winters with little snow can be followed by years of blizzardy winters. But a fearsome, freak blizzard in early March 1888 caught New York City completely unprepared, and caused property damage, injuries and death. It also changed how telephone and telegraph wires were connected to Manhattan homes [...]
Categorized in: Street Lamps Tagged with: Bronx Brooklyn East New York Jamaica Avenue Morris Park Queens Radial Wave Ridgewood Riverdale Sheepshead Bay Staten Island Van Cortlandt Park West Brighton
In Country Days in New York City, author Divya Summers describes this old commuter line that is now used for another purpose: The Old Putnam Railroad Track, a defunct railroad bad that one Manhattan-based Urban Park Ranger tells me is his favorite walk in the city (“I love being out in the fresh New York air”, [...]
Categorized in: Subways & Trains Tagged with: Bronx Riverdale Van Cortlandt Park
In New York City, between the golden age of cast-iron lampposts, approximately 1895 and 1950, and prior to the brave new world of green-white fluorescent bulbs (which held sway between 1960 and 1972, when super-bright yellow sodium bulbs took over) there was an interregnum of sorts, when old-style yellow incandescent lights were installed on modern, [...]
Categorized in: Street Lamps Tagged with: Bronx Brooklyn Cypress Hills Kew Gardens Manhattan Parkchester Queens Van Cortlandt Park
Once upon a time, New York City avenues were dominated by a long-armed, chocolate-colored cast-iron pole that my fellow lamppost maven Jeff Saltzman (whose site you can reach here) calls the “Corvingtons” although I doubt the Department Of Transportation ever gave them a real name. While side streets mostly had Bishop Crook poles, or a [...]
Categorized in: Street Lamps Tagged with: Bronx Brooklyn Central Park Corvingtons Dyker Heights Financial District Manhattan Queens Riverdale Rosedale Van Cortlandt Park
There are still a few of them left and some are actually working. “Crescent moon” style luminaires, called “crescents” because of their shape, were in vogue from the mid-40s until they were replaced by mercury vapor lamps in the early 60s. The “crescent moons” were very flexible in that they could be used both on [...]
Categorized in: Street Lamps Tagged with: Bronx Brooklyn Eastchester Manhattan Bridge Midwood Van Cortlandt Park
