I was somewhat surprised that even Elfreth’s Alley has a dead end blind lane issuing north from it near Front, a pedestrian-only lane called Bladen’s Court and it comes complete with a blue and white enamel sign and historic-appearing electric lamp.

One of the most perplexing situations as far as New York City streets and their names is concerned exists in Douglaston and Little Neck, where a curving road runs across…

I haven’t had the chance to nip down to Tottenville to see the newest station on the Staten Island Railway, Arthur Kill, which was built between the former Atlantic and…

On a recent outing I ran across this abandoned luncheonette, complete with green and gold “privilege” sign, on Tuskegee Airmen Way off 150th Street. The yellow tin letters on green background…

Just about all subway station identification signs that were rendered in white enamel with black lettering have pretty much disappeared from the subways, as white lettering on black signage, introduced…

I don’t think I’ve mentioned the short-statured Bishop Crook found on the east side of Steinway Street north of 30th Avenue in front of the Riou Bar & Lounge (which…

This lamppost, which was at Hudson and Hubert Streets in Tribeca for about 6 decades before its removal in 1979, is undoubtedly a Bishop Crook, but at the same time,…

In 1999, waiting for a train at the Smith-9th Street elevated IND station, I snapped a photo of the massive Kentile Floors neon sign, built to attract business from the…

Though most color-coded NYC street signs were removed in the 1980s after a run of only about twenty years, a group of them on Jamaica Avenue between Sutphin Boulevard and…

When I first saw this painted sign on Gansevoort between Greenwich and Washington, above the former Florent restaurant, I naturally assumed it said “Burnham’s BEET Wine.” Actually the T is…

Before about 2000 or so, there was an object that closely resembled a tombstone, at least from the back, at Ocean Parkway and Neptune Avenue in Coney Island. That year…

For a fairly large fellow, Abraham DePeyster (1657-1728) has moved about quite a bit. George Bissell’s seated portrait of the Dutch Colonial 17th-Century New Amsterdam mayor was first installed in Bowling Green…