A piece this week in Untapped Cities about Chumley’s, the “secret speakeasy” on Bedford Street in Greenwich Village that recently reopened after 10 years of renovations got me thinking about…
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Since May I have spent not a little time on Broadway between Times Square and Columbus Circle for a freelance job, noticing the infrastructure. This stretch of Broadway features the…
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A tavern at 240 West 52nd Street between 8th Avenue and Broadway bears the name of one of the architects of Greater New York, though few patrons may recognize him.…
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While poring through old maps and street directories ( I do it so you don’t have to) I occasionally see some great old street names that I wish had been…
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What to do when two streets in the same borough have the exact same name? Nothing much, but it’s a rarity in New York City. This is deliberate. The opposite…
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These handsome terra cotta station ID plates are a feature of the northern original IRT stations between 79th Street and 145th Street from 1904, and the 157th Street station from…
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Since we talk about Forgotten NY in terms of decades now, it’s been a good 14 years since I covered the Gowanus area of Brooklyn in any depth at all.…
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The former Rice Stadium in Pelham Bay Park was constructed in the early 1920s with the aid of a $1 million grant from Julia Rice, the widow of musician, lawyer,…
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Philip Gringer established a small storefront hardware store at #29 1st Avenue, between East 1st and 2nd Streets, in 1918. The store was a success, and now the floor space…
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Railroading became part of the New Utrecht Avenue story in 1863, when a steam railroad built by Charles Godfrey Gunther, a former NYC mayor, was built from the entrance to Green-Wood Cemetery…
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I have a continuing fascination with the NYC subways iconography and signage (and indeed, that of other transit systems in other towns as well) so I was happy to see…
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For quite awhile, I was puzzled by the inscription on the cornerstone of the handsome brick building at Broadway and 44th Street, “L.I.C. T.V. 1875.” Television? 1875? Some research revealed…