MANY of New York City’s longest and most important roads begin in inconspicuousness and humble spots. Metropolitan Avenue is one of the lengthiest routes between Brooklyn and Queens. It was…

At #178 Norfolk Street south of East Houston, keep looking up for a triumphant statue of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the chief architect of the Soviet state that ruled much of eastern…

SOMETIMES historic buildings are hiding in plain sight. Take this unassuming two-story house on Woodrow Road and Rossville Avenue, in an area that has gone from rural to suburban to…

THIS building on the northeast corner of 3rd Avenue and East 45th looms large in my memory. From 1982-1988, I was in the building most nights between 2 and 3…

HERE’S a tableau that’ll be familiar to Bronx residents in Norwood and Bedford Park: the Mosholu Parkway and in the background, the Tracey Towers. Mosholu Parkway is among the many…

THIS past May I went on a couple of swings through Kingsbridge Heights along Bailey Avenue and Kingsbridge Terrace, in Kingsbridge Heights, which are positioned on a steep ridge the…

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…

ALFRED Pancoast Boller (February 23, 1840 – December 9, 1912) was a civil engineer and bridge designer. He was the chief engineer on several bridge building projects during the late…

MANY New Yorkers cite 1993’s A Bronx Tale, written and acted in by Chazz Palminteri and produced and acted in by Robert De Niro, as their favorite movie. Though A Bronx Tale was…

DRIFTING into James and Karla Murray territory here, I present the storefront of Myers of Keswick at 634 Hudson, founded by Peter Myers, an immigrant from Keswick, England in 1985 after…

DEWITT Clinton (1769-1828) was a founding father who served as NY State Assemblyman, NYS Senator, NYS Governor, US Senator and NYC Mayor during an illustrious career capped by his indefatigable…

In 2009, Forgotten New York walked Division Street, one of Manhattan’s most unremarked-on thoroughfares. It hasn’t gotten much respect over the centuries and decades, either — it’s reduced to less…