Astoria

Grand Avenue Pizza is not on Grand Avenue but it is on an avenue that used to be Grand. I’ll explain in a minute. Today I got out of the…

While scrolling around Facebook lately, I stumbled on a bit of Astoria history that is hiding on Newtown Road, blocks away from the place where it was originally constructed. I…

From May to December 2019 I had a high-paying (by my standards) but perplexing job at a Very Small Design Firm a couple of blocks from Columbus Circle. I was…

The ethnic group Astoria has been traditionally known for is that of Greek immigrants, but there are also pockets from other European countries such as Spain. One gathering point for…

I’ve written about this fascinating mosaic sign at the Hunters Point Avenue #7 train station before, but it bears repeating. In the good old days, there was more than one…

I have always considered the massive concrete arches that lift railroad tracks to the Hell Gate Bridge over the streets of northwest Astoria almost as imposing as the arch bridge itself.…

Back in Astoria again — or rather, its northwestern end, which is also called Ditmars, named for the boulevard that bisects it and takes the place of 22nd Avenue (coincidentally,…

Well-worn territory for sure, but from November to February I did a fair bit of walking around in Astoria, especially in its northern stretch. This week, I wanted to do…

There’s been a lot of news about the subways and transportation in New York City lately, most of it about the deteriorating infrastructure in the more-than-century-old system. Extensive re-routings, rush-hour…

As I have related in FNY over the past year (2018), four elevated stations of the Astoria Line were closed for several months and then reopened with a radical new…

Fire alarms have been a feature on NYC streets since the late 1800s, and methods of marking them, first to passing horse-drawn coaches and pedestrians up to moving vehicles has…

Here’s 32-14 Steinway Street in Astoria between Broadway and 34th Avenue, a street I have passed often in the last decade since the (soon former) headquarters of my associate entity,…