6/09. Catching up on some older stuff while I am gradually recovering from surgery. In December I was out for lunch and a short walk in Sunnyside, Queens and in just…

I was in Forest Hills/Rego Park the other day (January 2009), 108th Street and 69th Road to be precise, when I vaguely remembered I had found a classic flute-bottomed, olive-colored stoplight…

Do architects design house numbers as parts of buildings anymore? Today house numbers are usually indicated by metal numbers attached separately above the door, or if we’re really talking cheap,…

December 2008: Just got a special ForgottenAlert from FFan David Sanders: I was returning from upstate NY today and got off the PATH train at 33rd Street, heading to the N…

It may have come across before but I enjoy New York City’s elevated trains. Not every American city has them anymore, or has them to the extent that New York does.…

By GARY FONVILLE Forgotten NY correspondent FNY’s cameras are always busy picking out things that exemplify NYC’s past. Some things that our cameras find are many decades old, but some may…

You have to hand it to Nassau and Suffolk Counties…both of those counties mark many of their historic locales with blue and gold signs giving brief details of the building,…

9th Avenue, Hell’s Kitchen between West 42nd and West 57th Streets, is known for restaurants showcasing cuisines from around the globe…European, Asian, Caribbean, you name it. On a recent walk south…

Long before the “humpbacked” street signs showing cross streets were installed on cast-iron lamps in the 1910s…long before porcelain, enamel and aluminum embossed signs appeared in the 1950s…and long before color-coded vinyl and…

I was staggering around the Briarwood-Jamaica border a few weeks ago (in July 2008) ignoring the drizzle and humidity and getting images for a possible Briarwood page and picking up possible…

On a May visit to Bay Ridge (to the dentist no less) I walked Fifth Avenue for the first time in a while, and spotted quite a number of store signs…

By GARY FONVILLE Forgotten NY Correspondent Once upon a time, telephone customers were assigned alphanumeric telephone numbers. For example, the numbers were such as FOundation 8-3556 (now 368-2556), MOnument 2-2491 (now 662-2491)…