Here’s a look at a Queens grocery store or delicatessen in July 1938. The shelves are chockablock with canned, packaged and bottled goods. You can see packs of Coca-Cola, for…

Here’s a placid scene at #605 West 42nd Street in 1940, just west of 11th Avenue in Hells Kitchen. Well into the 1980s, this was a somewhat sketchy part of…

Doing some late night noodling in Google Street View, I happened upon this ad, painted directly onto the building bricks on St. Johns Place just east of Troy Avenue for…

Forgotten Fan Bill Mangahas passed along this photo taken a few years ago by Jay Bendersky of a painted building ad on Avenue J just east of Coney Island Avenue.…

Here’s a look at what was a Babee-Tenda showroom at 84-14 Queens Boulevard, just west of Broadway, in Elmhurst in 1940. The company made a sort of high-tech high chair…

Charles H. Fletcher began selling his Castoria, a mild stomach remedy for children, in 1871, acquiring the patent from its inventor Dr. Samuel Pitcher. The medicine was heavily promoted on ads…

Staggering around Harlem on a recent Saturday, I gravitated to 3rd Avenue, which I hadn’t invaded recently. Mindful of the fact that 3rd Avenue had an elevated train rumbling over…

by GARY FONVILLEForgotten NY correspondent This may be the first of a kind for FNY.  Kevin Walsh and I have taken an untold number of pictures of signs that represented businesses that no…

Strolling down 9th Avenue after work during the summer, high above 9th Avenue and W. 44th I spotted a faded sign: “Scribner’s.” It’s atop a brick building at 311 W. 43rd Street that…

I worked at a very small design firm copy editing and proofreading financial PowerPoint slides from May through August 2019 at 1740 Broadway, the “MONY, MONY” building near Columbus Circle.…

Jason Antos recently snapped this photo of a near-pristine Coca-Cola ad at 23-08 Jackson Avenue near the #7 train overpass; the Court Square station is nearby. The ad is from…

Gre-Solvent soap, first produced in 1903, was the equivalent to Lava Soap (which in fact was a competitor since that brand launched in 1893). It was the soap used by…