I was stumbling around Marine Park on my way to a funeral parlor earlier this week when I noticed something definitely wonky about the house numbering. This is a neighborhood…

An unusual item turned up while I was attending a wake on Tuesday (April 16th). I disdain wakes, and I’ll have to make sure I don’t get one. I understand…

You can just barely make out the word “livery” on an apartment building at 329 6th Avenue between West 3rd and 4th Streets in Greenwich Village, and two larger letters,…

One constant in the Coney Island scene at Surf and Stillwell Avenues since 1916 has been Nathan’s Famous, Charles  Feltman was the purported inventor of the hot dog (it was…

ForgottenFan Marc A. Hermann chipped in on Twitter with a couple of venerable ads revealed by a teardown of an electronics store at East New York and Rockaway Avenues in…

St. Patrick’s Cathedral is the Capitol Building of the Catholic Church in New York City. The twin-spired Gothic Revival edifice, occupying the complete block between 5th and Madison Avenues and…

A full 90 years after a painted ad for his clothing firm appeared high above 151-163 W. 26th St off 7th Avenue, Solomon Blogg is appearing on … a blog.…

I have had good luck with New York City newspapers. Just a couple of weeks after Forgotten NY was launched on March 26, 1999, it received a good review by…

In the final scene of Sweet Smell of Success, Tony Curtis’ amoral, smarmy press agent Sidney Falco gets his final just desserts at Duffy Square. Father Francis Duffy of Holy Cross Church on…

John Jacob Astor, né Ashdor, was the richest man in the United States for a time in the early 1800s. He was originally a dealer of musical instruments as a young…

Whenever I’m in lower Manhattan, if I can I check on one of FNY’s favorite talismans: what has been the last remaining wall-mounted Bishop Crook lamppost in New York City.…

March 2019 marks Forgotten New York’s 20th anniversary. To celebrate the occasion, I’ve re-scanned about 150 key images from the early days of FNY from 35MM prints. In the early…