You’d Never Believe You’re in NYC

By JOE SCHIAFFINO Special to Forgotten New York Thorwald Heyerdahl built his stone house atop this hill in 1861-62 when he signed a five year lease indenture with property owner…

This all got started with a screen capture from Forgotten NY correspondent Sergey Kadinsky, who sent me a photo of a strangely-named Queens street and asked me if I knew…

I’m an old Riverdale hand — before Forgotten New York was a synapse in my brain, I was stalking around the place. I recall a late November 1984 stroll in…

In the remotest section of Staten Island, on a high hill with nothing but tangled weeds, snarled vines, migrating birds and hissing insects there lies the remains of one man’s…

While I was lounging on the poop deck of a Seastreak ferryboat (that name has always reminded me of the old Oakland Raider, Otis Sistrunk) on Saturday, September 22, 2012,…

CONTINUED FROM PART 1 Continuing south on Cross Island Parkway, the roadway briefly sneaks into Nassau County, and then straightens south of Belmont Racetrack, neatly delineating the Queens-Nassau border. The…

BY SERGEY KADINSKY Forgotten NY contributor Queens is a borough containing many streams. It has numerous creeks, basins, inlets, bays, and rivers. Deeper inland are a few ponds, remnants of…

Miss Heather, via facebook: So let’s see: my inbox is hoppin’ (this includes a missive from a college student. It is among the most grammatically nightmarish/typo-ridden tomes I have received in a…

BY SERGEY KADINSKY Forgotten NY contributor The Rockaway Peninsula of Queens never disappoints an urban explorer. Physically separated from the rest of New York City by water, it often feels…

When my friend and FNY correspondent Christina Wilkinson wrote a Governors Island overview in 2004, I thought it was the best one I had read until that time. The website…

CONTINUED FROM PART 1 Turns out my educated guess was right…here’s a 1949 Hagstrom Staten Island showing Drumgoole Boulevard, with Ramona Blvd. in parentheses. I couldn’t come to any other…

In the summer I occasionally have to shake off torpidity — the combination of overcast skies and muggy weather make it hard for me to get started. Bearing in mind…