In the winter of 2024-2025 I covered a great deal of the Lower East Side and East Village, on Avenues A through D. Still plagued by age-related back issues, I…
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NEW YORK CITY once had four main trunk elevated lines: the 2nd, 3rd, 6th and 9th Avenue Els. Of these, the Third Avenue gets the most of meager press attention…
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FORGIVE the relatively poor angle on this shot of Whitestone Lanes, at Whitestone Expressway and Linden Place, technically in Flushing. (It actually looks better by night than by day.) I…
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TUCKED away in Bayside along Long Island Rail Road tracks at 42nd Avenue between 215th Place and 216th Street is a private cemetery originally belonging to the prominent Queens County…
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FACING the corner of Fifth Avenue and E. 64th Street is a former state militia armory that serves as the headquarters of NYC Parks. As a landmarked building, its history…
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In 1940, Diamond’s Dry Goods held down 2516 Mermaid Avenue, west of West 25th Street in Coney Island. The name was displayed in a diamond-shaped motif with a window display…
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LARGE cast-iron stoplights I call “Wheelies” first began to show up in the late 1920s as wide boulevards began to appear and traffic got heavier. They appeared on narrower roads as…
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FOR years, I’ve noticed that many liquor stores in the five boroughs have the same signage they must have had decades ago…whether they’re ceramic, painted signs or my favorite, NEON.…
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In the mid-1760s, NYC had sufficiently grown that the Episcopalian parish of Trinity Church began to expand uptown, and built St. Paul’s Chapel in 1766. When a giant fire broke…
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SADLY I have never visited Big Nose Kate’s, a saloon way out in Rossville, at 2484 Arthur Kill Road, tucked near the huge Old Bermuda catering hall next to the…
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THIS week I’m continuing with explorations of north-south streets in Chinatown, Little Italy and the Lower East Side. Having already covered Christie Street and Eldridge Street, I’ll complete the trio…
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I got this photo at the dawn of Forgotten NY in the winter of 1998 at Bedford Avenue and North 4th, when Williamsburg was still an industrial/ethnic Eastern European stronghold,…