TWO very different eras of American history appear side by side in Sheridan Square in Greenwich Village. 7th Avenue South was created in the 1910s by the extension of the…

WHO is Hugh O’Neill, and why is his name on this building high above Sixth Avenue and 22nd Street? Back in the good old days, circa 1900, Hugh O’Neill owned the…

On a rare clear weekend day in February, I strolled through Williamsburg, a neighborhood I have had a hard time getting a handle on as it is ever-changing; when I…

In the running for the most attractive building on Metropolitan Avenue‘s 14-mile length from Williamsburg to Jamaica is the Hess-Miller Funeral Home at 65th Street. Its location is no coincidence,…

I have always been fascinated by the massive masonry arches (that cover a steel framework) that pop up around town. Probably the greatest concentration is in Astoria, where a series…

MUCH to my regret I was unable to partake at Roebling Pizza at #324 Roebling between South 8th and 9th in Williamsburg simply because I was scuttling past like a…

PERIODICALLY, I check on my favorite bits of infrastructure around town and sometimes I’m disappointed, like when I saw the Twinlamp at 5th Avenue and 28th Street had disappeared. Well,…

REX Cole (1887-1967) was originally a lamp manufacturer, then became associated with General Electric in the 1920s and designed white enamel Monitor Top refrigerators. Famed architect Raymond Hood designed a series…

HERE’S a painted ad for the Loew’s Woodside Theatre, which is actually still standing on Roosevelt Avenue and 58th Street. In one of the most unusual reuses for a theater,…

OFTEN, developers give names to apartment buildings that can be seen above the entrances. Family members, wives, husbands, children are often used; presidents or local politicians; but occasionally, developers will…

HERE’S the front doorway of #5-#7 Ten Eyck Street at Union Avenue. Ten Eyck Street runs in three pieces in East Williamsburg, through the Williamsburg Houses, where it’s reduced to…

BEFORE Brooklyn was a borough, it was a city; before that, it was a smaller city; before that, it was a small town; before that, a few huts by the…