New York City’s oldest extant hotel building is hiding in plain sight at the busy corner of West Broadway and Chambers in Tribeca. Recently redubbed as a luxury hotel called…

There’s a grand old brick building at 74 East 4th Street in the East Village, midblock between 2nd and 3rd Avenues. Since 1967 home to La Mama Experimental Theatre, the building went…

This is one of a pair of painted ads that appear on a brick building off Vernon Boulevard between 45th Road and 46th Avenue; this is the one on 46th.…

I have mentioned the Emil Talamini Real Estate office painted sign on the side of the handsome Villager apartment building at 450 6th Avenue, between West 10th and 11th, before. I…

Now and then I run across a historic item in NYC I had no idea even existed. With permission, I’m reprinting an item that appeared on the Pat Salmon Historic…

I was staggering around in SoHo a few summers ago in the dead dog 85-degree, 75 dewpoint heat down Prince Street. I had just gotten out of a job interview…

I’ve written about tiny Dunham Place (pronounced “dunnam”) before, back in 2008. About the only thing I forgot to mention is that the alley, between South 6th Street and Broadway…

There are a lot of interesting items from a Forgotten NY aspect scuffling around under the Jamaica Avenue el on Woodhaven, such as outmoded street lighting, hidden cemeteries a block…

Original specimens of the Type 24M cast-iron lamppost, what Jeff’s Streetlight Site‘s Jeff Saltzman (he abdicated his crown of King of NYC Lampposts to Bob Mulero after he moved to…

There are still a number of 19th-Century firehouses scattered around town, exhibiting architectural styles popular in the years they were built. Engine 47, #500 West 113th Street off Amsterdam Avenue,…

Like its one-block long brother to the south, Cortlandt Street, Dey Street was once much longer, but today runs only for a block, between Broadway and Church Street. It was…

Even by Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, standards, the John Rankin House at #440 Clinton Street at Carroll is impressive. It looks to be a cube-shaped Greek Revival brick building with tasteful ornamentation such…