JUST like pretty much everything else, the art of signage has suffered over the past few decades. That’s getting to be a frequent trope in Forgotten NY, and I’m going…

IT’S not the only wayto tell you’re in a hipster neighborhood … the clothing and the hairstyles are a good tipoff…but one surefire method is the number of stickies and…

Tribeca— a neighborhood that I prefer to call the Lower West Side, which it was before it became a hipster and yuppie playground –has been raised from the dead in…

BY MIKE EPSTEIN of satanslaundromat Everyone knows about Kentucky Fried Chicken, lately known as KFC, whose hundreds of franchise locations in New York City make sure chicken and biscuits are…

THE Lower East Side of cheap clothing bins, wholesale bargains and sweatshops is vanishing, as Chinatown expands east into its southern section (between, say, Delancey and Canal) and hipsters and…

YOU NEVER KNOW where you’re going to find inspiration for Forgotten NY pages. One of the interviewees in Gothamist in September 2004 was columnist/novelist Amy Sohn, and she slipped in this remark: The F…

photo: Rachelle Bowden The Bethesda Fountain and Terrace, at the north end of Central Park’s Mall at about 72nd Street, has long been a focal point and a favorite meeting…

Insurance attorney Lawrence Rogak of Oceanside, Long Island, has been collecting old signs and NYC arcana for many years. Recently, he invited your webmaster to his law office for a…

So where were you on July 4, 1976? I remember it pretty well. I had stayed up all night just so I’d be awake at 5AM to get ready to…

You’re not supposed to call it 6th Avenue, you know. 6th Avenue has a rather involved history. It has been extended both northward and southward and has been renamed twice! In…

The streets of New York bear continued witness to the many failed political campaigns of years past. Though they’ve lost, they live to challenge another day. And, their campaign signage…

A walk in the neighborhoods of any of the five boroughs reveals the practical and pragmatic philosophy…’if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ You’ll see some signs that have been…