Block after block of monolithic stone-clad buildings between 2nd Ave and 3rd Avenue from 30th to 36th Streets were constructed by architect William Higginson in the first 3 decades of the…

Well into the 20th Century it was common practice for women to give birth at home, assisted by their husbands, “significant others” and one or more midwives. The practice shifted…

The Italianate apartment-mixed use building 985 2nd Avenue, on the corner of East 52nd, is loomed over by more recent structures such as 875 3rd Avenue (1982) in whose basement food…

These new street signs appear in Kensington, a tony subdivision of the town (or village; I’m too lazy to determine) of Great Neck, which is east of the undefined border of Queens…

A bit short on time today, so I thought I would do a short item on the unique Flushing Meadows-Corona Park signage, which uses different fonts than other fonts used…

“What hath God wrought?” With those words, the Information Age began. You know Samuel Finley Breese Morse (1791-1872) invented the telegraph and sent that first famous message in 1844 … but did you…

I was rambling around recently in Mount St. Mary Cemetery, the largest Catholic cemetery in Queens other than Holy Calvary in the western end of the borough. I had never…

By GARY FONVILLE Forgotten NY correspondent I was in Lower Manhattan recently headed to a national stationery store to purchase computer ink. Don’t get me started on how computer printer…

During the recent East Village tour, I misplaced the Spingler vault in the St. Mark’s churchyard, which I wanted to talk about, so here it is now… The St. Mark’s…

Here’s what was the Loew’s Alpine Theatre at 5th Avenue and Bay Ridge Avenue (69th Street) in 1941. The Alpine was opened in 1921 and was a movie theater from…

I recently took a lengthy walk recently from Oakwood Heights down to Oakwood Beach in Staten Island, continuing on a fairly straight course back through Midland and South Beaches before…

Seekers of beautiful architecture visit Greenpoint’s India, Kent, Milton, and Noble Streets for their concentrations of classic 19th-century buildings. But my favorite cross street in Greenpoint is Oak, which also…