Though Hibernia Bank was acquired by Security Pacific in 1988 and has been long forgotten, its 1892 “temple bank” building [Albert Pissis, arch.] still stands proudly, if a bit worse…

One of the most beloved artifacts in downtown San Francisco is at Market Street where it meets Kearny and Third Streets, where the city’s oldest public monument, Lotta’s Fountain, can…

Classic light post, Union Street near Mason, San Francisco. San Fran has done a good job preserving classic posts — Union and Market have the same poles they had for…

The last time I was in DC (December 2007) I quite accidentally stumbled on these remaining streetcar rails on O and P Street in Georgetown. Looks like the city is…

This line in the Watergate area of Washington, DC, was used by USA mapmakers to divide the world into eastern and western hemispheres between 1848-1884. Thereafter, the USA accepted the…

Despite federal guidelines elsewhere that mandate green and white reflective street signs, Brookline, Massachusetts (the birthplace of John F. Kennedy) has always been permitted to retain its handsome set of…

Over the years my pal Allen Dade has passed along several dozen images of the strange and varied lampposts found in the London area. I know next to nothing at…

During my August 2008 visit to San Francisco, it occurred to me that I had never seen the sun set in the Pacific Ocean, or an ocean of any kind. This…

Though San Francisco is much smaller in total area than New York, its strict grid street system provides ample opportunity for builders to include alleys in its street plan. While Manhattan…

You might think San Francisco and Flushing have absolutely nothing in common, but they do share something. Way over in the extreme western end of Flushing, between College Point Boulevard, the Van…

“There was a time in this fair land when the railroad did not run,” once sang Canadian Gordon Lightfoot, and as hard to believe as it is now, NYC and New Jersey…

I arrived in Roslyn on a March day in 2007 so clear and bright it crackled. It was, in fact, Easter Sunday. Visiting the North Shore, Long Island town of about…