We don’t have time machines. Oh, the changes I’d make if I could go back in time. However, we do have photographs, archives and maps to show us what things…

DOMINIE’S Hoek (Hook), originally the western end of the town of Newtown, was originally settled when a tract of land was awarded to Everard Bogardus, a Dutch Reformed minister (dominie),…

USUALLY in my Forgotten New York posts, I bring up subjects to which I already have answers (like any decent trial lawyer). Today, though, is a bit different: I have…

THE west end of Rutland Road in central Brooklyn runs through one of Brooklyn’s most attractive neighborhoods, Lefferts Gardens; indeed the west end is part of a landmarked district, and…

EVEN after Greater New York was founded in 1905, southern Brooklyn and much of Queens, Bronx and Staten Island was farmland if not open country, dotted here and there with…

THIS is how Hagstrom Maps, founded in 1916 as a photo reproduction and retouching house that began selling maps a few years later, depicted the Bellerose section of eastern Queens…

ANCIENT New Utrecht, Brooklyn, now co-terminous with Kings County, was once just one of six towns that made up Kings County, delineated by British rulers in 1683. “Kings” refers to the…

TIME once again to look at some ancient maps depicting the New York City of long ago. Here’s a map excerpt of the area where East Flatbush, Brownsville and East…

HERE’S a map excerpt I found at a NY Transit Museum exhibition of subway maps in early 2020; it shows the Corona (now the Flushing) and Astoria lines under construction.…

ONE of my favorite pastimes is to pore over old maps, especially of New York City, and note what is still there and what has disappeared. In the mid-19th Century,…

HERE’S part of a wonderfully detailed Edsall map of lower Manhattan from 1880. I’m sure I’ll return to it again and again for FNY posts; just look at how busy…

IT’S been quite awhile…2005, to be exact… when I last extensively walked in Brownsville, East New York and that deliberately nonmaintained backwater known as The Hole (even Google Maps calls…