FOR an unknown reason, New York City has been cagy about assigning a 200th Street. In Inwood, one of the main east-west streets is Dyckman, which runs from the Hudson…

NEW York’s first water system was built between 1837 and 1842. Prior to those years, water was obtained from cisterns, wells and barrels from rain. Construction began in 1837 on…

HERE’S a classic linoleum or vinyl sidewalk sign at #251 Nassau Avenue at Kingsland Avenue in eastern Greenpoint in one of my favorite color combinations, beige and green, with “Buckley’s”…

BROOKLYN starts with Fulton Street, and almost ends with it, as well. Brooklyn began as a small Dutch settlement along the East River, with easy passage to Manhattan by ferry.…

YES, Andrews Coffee Shop is familiar to office workers in the Penn Station area, on 7th Avenue and West 35th. But indulge me, as it is part of my past…

THERE’S a two-block stretch of Laurel Hill Boulevard between 65th Place and 67th Street independent of the BQE, and the block between 66th and 67th Streets actually has residences and…

FORGOTTEN Fan Michael Towers was out for a stroll in the Downtown Brooklyn-Brooklyn Heights area when he encountered a recent teardown at the corner of Fulton Street Mall and Red…

WHEN I moved to fabulous Flushing in 1993, I was still bicycling far distances in roadways, ranging as far west as Ridgewood and as far east as Garden City; these…

THE ceramic plaque at the Canal Street station on the #1 train, the 7th Avenue line, depicts a church with a towering spire, flanked by ample vegetation. Neither the church that…

My mission was simple in March 2022: walk east on Stanton from the Bowery until it reaches Pitt, then south a block, then west on Rivington back to the Bowery.…

I know little about Dripps, the mid-century New York City and environs mapmaker; and in fact, I know little about its successors, Bromley, Belcher Hyde, Rand McNally, Hagstrom and Geographia.…

QUEENS streets were numbered gradually by the Queens Topographical Bureau beginning in 1915, under a system designed by Charles U. Powell of the Queens Topographical Bureau. Many think that Robert…