Back in 2016 I was enthusiastically noting Bartunek Hardware’s ancient sign at its #28-07 23 Avenue location, nearby the Ditmars Boulevard N train station. The store has been in business…

FOR 8 years or so, from 1982-1990, I lived in a railroad-flat type apartment at #654 73rd Street, which until 1960 or so was smack in the middle of the…

Forgotten New York correspondent and President of the Newtown Historical Society Christina Wilkinson found this sign on a telephone pole at 155th Avenue and Huron Street in Howard Beach, just…

I was tipped about this ancient sign at 49-10 Vernon Boulevard in the recent book by Bill Helmreich, The Queens Nobody Knows (sadly, Helmreich, who I met by serendipity on…

I don’t feel shame in admitting that I have pizza at least twice a week, usually one slice for lunch or maybe two for dinner. I’m not adventurous, though; I…

Happy Saturday. A short time ago, a couple of collectors posted on Facebook some photos of examples of these Staten Island street signs in their possession, which they had restored…

The rapidly gentrifying, upscaling Bowery, formerly home to NYC’s entertainment district, the Third Avenue Elevated and flophouses has its own fiefdoms that are little remarked upon. One stretch is home…

I stalked around in Riverdale and Fieldston, in the northwest Bronx, on two separate hikes last year, both in early November, and I intend to go back the same time…

BLOODGOOD Haviland Cutter (1817-1906) was a miller, potato farmer, property owner (he once owned the land where my garden apartment complex, Westmoreland Village, stands) and composer of light doggerel. He…

Deep in the heart of Williamsburg is a remnant of its former street numbering system, as Roebling Street is here rendered as “Sixth Street.” North-south Williamsburg streets were originally numbered…

Rotary International bills itself as an organization dedicated “to bring[ing] together business and professional leaders in order to provide humanitarian service and to advance goodwill and peace around the world.”…

The West 4th Street station is the nexus point of the IND, the point where the 6th and 8th Avenues lines come together on two separate levels. From here, trains…