Before poured concrete became the de rigueur material for New York City sidewalks, they boasted unique slate bluestone plates that made a distinct hollow noise when trod upon. Older parts…
Brooklyn
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In 2002, Brooklyn looks seamless. Oh, sure, there are major differencesbetween neighborhoods. Some are richer or poorer than others, and some have different racial makeups than others, speaking generally. But…
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Only in the ‘dirty 30s’ (as weatherman Tex Antoine used to say) could a laundry be named the most beautiful building in Queens…though in the borough of Archie Bunker, maybe…
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Street Lamps
TALES OF THE T-POLES. NYC’s variety of telephone pole lighting fixtures over the decades.
by Kevin WalshHeavy snow in NYC winters is unpredictable. A series of winters with little snow can be followed by years of blizzardy winters. But a fearsome, freak blizzard in early March 1888…
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Some more golden goodies from Brooklyn…. Photo: Gary Fonville Though Fulton Street in downtown Brooklyn has tried hard to homogenize and mall-ify itself over the last 20 years, a…
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We’re going to Broadway today. We’re also going to Park Avenue, Lexington Avenue, Wall Street, Canal Street and several other well-known New York City locales. But since this website is…
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Street Lamps
CHANGING OF THE GUARD: Documenting the beginning of the end of the ornate castirons in 1960.
by Kevin WalshROLL CALL OF LUMINAIRES I’ll admit it. There’s a big hole in my information on NYC lamppost manufacturers and makes, since I’ve not a clue of these designs’ actual names, nor…
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BY THE THOUSANDS they came, back in the early 1960s, replacing the picturesque castiron Corvington longarms… It was a strange, exhilarating, depressing yet exciting time to be a six-year-old lamppost fan…
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Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson left Bay Ridge to serve the Stars and Bars in the “War of Northern Aggression” while Tony Manero left it only to wind up in the…
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When your webmaster lived in Bay Ridge, before 1993, I would often wander Prospect Park’s paths and would delightfully discover its massive arches and small wooden bridges, and spans seemingly…
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Visible remnants can still be found from a trolley line in Canarsie, Brooklyn, at which trolleys last clanged and rumbled way back in 1942. There’s a catch though–this was no…
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Hart Crane never wrote poems about it, Sonny Rollins practiced sax on the Williamsburg, not the Manhattan, and Steve Brodie never jumped off of it. The Manhattan Bridge has always stood in the shadow of…