February 2013

As part of its centennial celebrations in early 2013, Grand Central Terminal, at East 42nd Street between Vanderbilt and Lexington Avenues, has restored a 1919 lamppost that was taken out…

Since today  (2/14) is supposed to be the holiday of love, I’ll show you a few streets around town that honor it by name…   Valentine Avenue, Bronx (Do I…

Ash Wednesday crowds enter and exit St. Peter’s Church, on Church and Barclay Streets. The church represents the oldest Catholic parish in New York State and is one of the…

When Boston’s MBTA Green Line Arlington station in Back Bay was under renovation in 2006, one of its original mosaic signs was discovered. The sign was incorporated into the redesign,…

The name “William Trist Bailey” will probably engender not a whiff of recognition by all except true Queens historians these days, but you have him to thank for the far-off…

In Janaury 2012 I was scrabbling around Uptown Trinity Cemetery and its adjacent neighborhood, Sugar Hill, so named because it represented the “sweet” life to aspiring African-Americans who lived uptown,…

The Owls Head Sewage Treatment Plant, on the outskirts of beautiful Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, is accessible by roads from Bay Ridge Avenue (69th Street) and from the Belt Parkway. The…

The NY Daily News still uses a stylized graphic of an old-style camera in its front page logo, situated between the Y and the N. In 1948, though, it was…

While meandering through eastern Bushwick, dazed by the unbearable 80-degree heat in the late summer of 2011, I was pleased to find something I hadn’t previously known about: the almost-garishly…

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…

According to Eating in Translation, Thurston & Braidich, whose faded ad can be seen at 286 Spring Street near Greenwich next to what is now the Fire Department of New…

Known as “The Boy Mayor” as the youngest NYC chief executive to date, John Purroy Mitchel was elected in 1913 at the age of 34. After losing his bid for…