JOHANNES Lott built a small house on his Flatlands property about 1720 on land first settled by Dutchman Hugh Aerens as far back as 1636. In the 1700s, Gerritsen Creek…

JOHN. It’s probably the most common given name in the English language. Most Johns walking around today are likely named for their father, or a prominent family member, who were…

An aspect of subways and railroads in New York City that has never gotten deserved scrutiny is the wide variety of platform lighting found around town both in the subways…

BY SERGEY KADINSKYForgotten NY correspondent SWING drawbridges used to be very common across this city, appearing not only on the Harlem River, but also at Newtown Creek, Flushing Creek, and…

WHEN the NYC Department of Purchase Building, at Water and New Dock Streets under the Brooklyn Bridge, was demolished in 2008, it wasn’t without protest from preservationists who wanted to…

I was in Huntington Village on Long Island a few years ago to attend a book signing for Wayne Coffey’s “They Said It Couldn’t Be Done,” his account of the…

PURELY guesswork on my part, but I’ll bet Five Mile Stone, a tavern on the corner of 2nd Avenue and East 85th Street in Yorkville, is named for a marker…

THE famed Silk Clock in the Schwarzenbach Building, 470 Park Avenue South, periodically disappears for repairs, but it was apparently in working order when I passed it on PAS and East…

THE region of Brooklyn’s DUMBO in the immediate Fulton Ferry area is one of my favorite parts of town to poke around in and I hope to get back there…

By SERGEY KADINSKYForgotten NY correspondent WHEN driving from Queens to the heart of Brooklyn, the Jackie Robinson Parkway abruptly ends at the intersection of Jamaica Avenue, Pennsylvania Avenue, and Bushwick…

I haven’t devoted a page exclusively to a specific variety of lamp that was installed exclusively on pedestrian walkways that spanned expressways built in the 1950s; this variety, sort of…

ONE of Queens’ obscurest alleys is just a few blocks away from Forgotten New York headquarters. It’s a short dead end called Jessie Court and it sits on Northern Boulevard…