General Motors’ so-called “new-look” “fishbowl” buses were introduced in 1959 and almost immediately made a, er, splash on NYC streets, with selected routes getting them the very next year. The “fishbowl”…

I’ve been aware of this rare midblock passageway between side streets in Chelsea, between West 26th and West 27th Streets, for a few years now. I was pasing by on my…

I fell onto West 123rd Street almost by accident, but it was most likely a consequence of the men who built the parks in the mid-19th Century, the general topography, and…

When NYC’s Department of Transportation wants something gone, it’s gone, and there’s not much you can do. Even though the DOT has been spending a couple of decades installing retro versions…

On a drab 15-degree January day in 2010 I made my way up Flatbush Avenue and grabbed the statues that ring Grand Army Plaza, where Flatbush meets the northern end of…

Up until a couple of years ago, Anna Huntington’s Joan of Arc statue on Riverside Drive and West 93rd Street was the only one depicting a historic female personality. And, up…

After moving to Little Neck in 2007, I have taken a lot of photos in my new town, but have been saving them for the right time to use them, which…

On the second leg of my quick Bensonhurst trip, I wandered down 84th Street into the heart of ancient New Utrecht. Brooklyn, now co-terminous with Kings County, was once just one, albeit the most…

I lived in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn for 35 years, the last time in 1993 when I gravitated to Queens. I now live on the borderline of Queens and Nassau County. I…

At one time, railroad stations, especially terminals in large cities, were thought of as magnificent gateways or portals to new realms, welcoming travelers from far and wide to places they had…

I have been a frequent visitor to what I call The Dead Pool, a bend in the Arthur Kill, the waterway separating the west and south of Staten Island from New…

After our earlier ramble on Westchester Square’s southern edge, it’s time now to explore the northern end of Westchester Square, formerly the town center of the Dutch village of Oostdorp, renamed by…