STRANGE that we remember things somewhat fondly after awhile that at the time, were borderline dangerous or scary. In April 2011 I was patrolling the Newtown Creek area with Mitch…

THE Amalgamated Houses, seen here on Van Cortlandt Park South and Hillman Avenue, was the first union-sponsored housing cooperative in the United States, sponsored by the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union…

PERHAPS you don’t immediately know the name Piet Mondrian, but you might more readily know his style: unevenly spaced boxes, some filled with color, some without. They have been used…

In September 2021 I was making my unsteady and furtive way down 34th Avenue from Woodside to Jackson Heights when I spotted this extra-large 69th Street sign. Hard to see…

ARE my eyes deceiving me here at the Brooklyn Queens Expressway where Boody Street meets Astoria Boulevard at the Art Moderne Bulova Corporate Center? They must be. How else can…

GLACIERS formed the original Silver Lake, converted into the southern end of New York’s Catskill water supply system as a reservoir in 1913, filling this function until 1971. The reservoir…

THIS photo comes from a recent jaunt down Forest Avenue in Staten Island, a lengthy route that runs from Victory Boulevard to the Goethals Bridge. I only got halfway, only…

I should really save this one for a Chambers Street page, since I recently walked the lower Manhattan route while aiming for the Brooklyn Bridge, whose pedestrian path has finally…

INFRASTRUCTURALLY, there’s a lot going on here at the undefended Queens-Nassau borderline where Jericho Turnpike/Jamaica Avenue encounter Braddock Avenue and the Cross Island Parkway. On the left, we see the…

MODERN-day Red Hook residents little suspect that there was once a movie theater in this diminutive brick building on the SW corner of Richards and Pioneer in Red Hook, across…

If you look a street map of the southern Bronx, Brook Avenue seems to act oddly, running in a straight line north out of Mott Haven, but then curving northwest…

As a rule, I am a passing observer on the daily scene. I don’t discuss politics either here or on social media, as my opinions will infuriate everyone, and today,…