Newark, NJ has installed some new faux-retro streetlights in its downtown area recently, but unfortunately, that’s served as the death knell for several grand old cast iron specimens along Market…

I think I’ll have to take New Jersey Transit to Ridgewood, NJ. Why? It’s got plenty of ancient “gumball” incandescent light fixtures, complete with their original telephone pole masts, and…

There was a time when directional signs such as this one, on Plandome and Stonytown Roads in Plandome, Nassau County, were quite prevalent along America’s roadways. The advent of the…

Just past the city line in Elmont, Hempstead Turnpike (NY 24) passes Belmont Park Racetrack , which captures the public imagination every June as it hosts the third leg, and lengthiest,…

The Hudson Observer hasn’t been published since 1951 (when it merged with the Jersey Observer). The Hudson Observer Building is still at 111 Newark Street (at Bloomfield); Observer Highway, formerly Ferry Street, hasn’t gotten…

I was clattering about Jersey City the other day, and turning a corner, I beheld a sight that shocked me. The smokestacks of the mighty Hudson and Manhattan Powerhouse, one…

When I visited San Fran in 2008 I made sure to visit some of the picturesque dead ends and alleyways, of which most of the city is rife (there just…

The loss of several hundred photos shot in 2013 because of a hard drive incident has forced me to go deep into the ForgottenArchives, and so I fished out this…

Street signs in Philadelphia are maintained by the Traffic and Street Lighting Unit of the Philadelphia Streets Department, just as NYC’s Department of Transportation does.   The predominant Philly street sign…

His biographers say that Frank Lloyd Wright didn’t particularly care for NYC (or the East Coast for that matter), and he produced only one major work in the five boroughs:…

Glen Campbell Road, in the northwest Philadelphia Roxborough neighborhood, isn’t named for the country music singer of “Galveston” and “Wichita Lineman” fame. It’s nested amidst a number of streets with…

In a super-rare occurrence, a Chelsea business has rid itself of  a newer sign in favor of an older one that had been hidden for years. This laundromat at 9th…