STRANGE that we remember things somewhat fondly after awhile that at the time, were borderline dangerous or scary. In April 2011 I was patrolling the Newtown Creek area with Mitch…

I was recently sent this image of a Fteley / Watson Avenues sign from the Soundview Bronx neighborhood. These navy and white signs were employed in Manhattan and the Bronx…

ALTHOUGH he is a ubiquitous figure from mid-November through December 26th, little is known of the daily existence of Santa Claus, who brings toys to good little boys and girls…

I cannot tell you if Al Horn Baking Equipment, a wholesaler in the Westchester Square area, is still in business. I can tell you that the ghosts of its plastic…

I just keep finding more and more artifacts at the High Street IND subway station serving A and C trains. One of the artifacts is the name of the station…

I am old. Impossibly old. Older than you imagine. Older than you can imagine. And I have returned to work fulltime, with Marquis Who’s Who, albeit via my home computer.…

THE Amalgamated Houses, seen here on Van Cortlandt Park South and Hillman Avenue, was the first union-sponsored housing cooperative in the United States, sponsored by the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union…

PERHAPS you don’t immediately know the name Piet Mondrian, but you might more readily know his style: unevenly spaced boxes, some filled with color, some without. They have been used…

In September 2021 I was making my unsteady and furtive way down 34th Avenue from Woodside to Jackson Heights when I spotted this extra-large 69th Street sign. Hard to see…

ARE my eyes deceiving me here at the Brooklyn Queens Expressway where Boody Street meets Astoria Boulevard at the Art Moderne Bulova Corporate Center? They must be. How else can…

GLACIERS formed the original Silver Lake, converted into the southern end of New York’s Catskill water supply system as a reservoir in 1913, filling this function until 1971. The reservoir…

As mentioned on a recent post, on a sparkling December Saturday (quite unlike the following one during which I’m writing this) I decided to walk Chambers Street then across the…