1998

IT’S A SUBWAY LINE the MTA tried to close down years ago and allowed to deteriorate for decades. It’s a line that connects to an elevated line that was razed…

Southern Brooklyn still has a number of its ancient routes preserved as hardly-surviving dirt roads and alleys. Today’s Brooklynites probably do not know that these roads existed for centuries, ever…

Nestled in the middle of Jamaica Bay is an island community known as Broad Channel. It is the province of seagulls, roaring jets taking off from Kennedy Airport, The Jamaica…

Trolley tracks aren’t the only remnants of former trolley lines that are still dotting the city landscape. The poles that carried the electric power supply are still here and there. Many…

This is the former New York and Queens Railroad Company trolley barn. It was built in 1896 to serve the fledgling NY & QRC, which was formed that year when the…

  Walk through the Garment District (7th Avenue between 34th and 40th Streets), and you’ll see, besides the men dragging coat and clothing- laden carts through the cramped streets, a plethora…

There are more streets still sporting their original brick or Belgian block pavements than you may think. There are still dozens, as a matter of fact… here are some of…

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…

Throughout New York, lampposts are mounted on walls under special circumstances. Sometimes, there is not enough room on a narrow sidewalk to safely install a complete lamppost. At other locations,…

It’s 1888 and steam-powered elevated trains and horsecars were the primary means of transportation on the Bowery. In those days, the Third Avenue El ran down each side of the Bowery…

The streets of New York City used to be paved with bricks. The term ‘cobblestones’ refers to uneven stones of varying shapes and sizes. This style of paving went out…

Constructed exclusively to light the network of parkways that Robert Moses constructed beginning in the Twenties, these distinctive poles are made of both wood and iron. Some are still in…