Crown Heights

By SERGEY KADINSKYForgotten New York correspondent THE flaw of urban planning in Brooklyn is the beauty of Prospect Park as the borough’s signature greenspace, and seemingly endless blocks of housing…

YOU can observe a lot just by looking, as Yogi Berra used to say. For example, here’s a handsome brick building on Washington and st. Mark’s Avenues at the edge…

By SERGEY KADINSKYForgotten NY correspondent On its route between Grand Army Plaza and Ralph Avenue, Brooklyn’s Eastern Parkway is a designated city scenic landmark, the first Olmstedian parkway. While its…

There’s on odd little alley running between Empire Boulevard and Montgomery Street just east of Nostrand Avenue called Clove Road. Its only intersection is with a short piece of Malbone…

Doing some late night noodling in Google Street View, I happened upon this ad, painted directly onto the building bricks on St. Johns Place just east of Troy Avenue for…

By GARY FONVILLE Forgotten NY correspondent There have been many signs chronicled in FNY over the years. Many can still be read, despite their vintage Some have even faded to…

I know… you were probably expecting me to cover the famed Carroll Street Bridge over Gowanus Canal, built in 1889. I’ve featured that bridge (one of 4 remaining retractile bridges…

There are two Ford Streets in Brooklyn– just as there are two West Streets (Gravesend, Greenpoint) two West 9th Streets (Gravesend, Red Hook) and even two Atlantic Avenues (Boerum Heights…

By GARY FONVILLE Forgotten New York correspondent At the President Street station, on the IRT Nostrand Avenue line, this may be the oldest remaining sign of any kind in that…

Gary Fonville sent me a magnificent building clad in shiny terra cotta on Nostrand Avenue and Sterling Place, claiming it to be yet another lost Child’s restaurant as featured in…

Mid-Brooklyn’s north-south avenues have a naming pattern from west to east. After Bedford and then Nostrand, they are named for major cities found going north on the Hudson River and…

Small, round Brooklyn-Battery of Queens-Midtown Tunnel signs, as opposed to small, round webmasters,  are getting rarer. This one points traffic west on Atlantic Avenue at Bedford… H/T Gary Fonville 10/29/14