WHEN I stepped outdoors for a bit of fresh air in this October of perpetual sunshine and 75 degrees, I didn’t expect to get the pleasant surprise that I got.…

GENOVESE was formerly a big name in the pharmacy world, operating over 100 drugstores in the NY metropolitan area. The company was founded by Joseph Genovese in Astoria in 1924,…

SADLY, this painted sidewalk sign for glazier Ideal Glass at #20-22 East 2nd Street near 2nd Avenue (that’s a lot of “2”‘s) has been painted over, giving the space a…

THE iron fence at Owl’s Head Park in Bay Ridge is inscribed with the letters EWB. What, or who, do these letters refer to? Owls Head Park is Bay Ridge’s…

HAVING roamed Governors Island for the first time in a few years, my mission was to pay attention to the older infrastructure. I first stopped on the island at Christmas…

RETURNING to a well-worn route in my experience, 5th Avenue. Five happens to be my favorite number for some reason, as I have spent considerable time on 5th Avenue. Not…

WHILE scuttling through Carroll Gardens en route to Red Hook in August 2024, I noticed this old school sign on Court Street off Luquer, for Battery Car Service. It seems…

JUST outside the turnstiles in the concourse of the 14th Street station on the IND 8th Avenue line (A, C, E trains) there’s a handsomely lettered sign in the black…

I have been paying more attention to the shingle signs that are found outside doctors’ offices, because some of them are old indeed and have been in place for a…

NOT many physical relics or manifestations remain of the original World Trade Center Twin Towers (1971-2001), except in photographs and memories. However, here’s a remembrance, in a very old peak-roofed…

HERE’S a relic you can find at the 71st Avenue express station serving E, F, R and M trains on the Queens Boulevard IND. On the center pillars, you can…

CRAZED from the unrelenting July heat and humidity, I was scuttling east on the Long Island Expressway south service road recently when I spotted the anomaly seen above. It’s a…