Fresh Meadows

I have written about Weeks Lane before. It meanders through the modern grid on the Fresh Meadows-Bayside border northeast from Hollis Court Boulevard and 53rd Avenue northeast to 47th Avenue…

Continued from Part 1 Today my idea was to walk from Jamaica Estates, one of two ritzy (or mostly ritzy, in comparison to where I’ve lived) areas in northern Jamaica,…

One again, it’s time to go back…way back..back into time with my western Queens map published in 1852. This is the earliest map of the area in my possession. It’s…

Not only is this classic 1964 blue-on-white Queens street sign gone at the traffic triangle at 58th Avenue, Booth Memorial Avenue, Utopia Parkway and 183rd Street, the small NYC Parks…

On 182nd Street just north of 73rd Avenue you will see what appears to be a weedy, empty lot, with ivy and ancient trees. This, though, is the cemetery of…

Forgotten New York has many parents. I have said before that the kernel may have been planted in 1962, when the Department of Traffic tore down all the castiron lampposts…

In the early 20th Century, Queens featured hundreds of striped poles featuring directional signs to different neighborhoods and even out-of-borough locations.  This one, photographed in 1931, pointed to Flushing, Brooklyn,…

After spending my first 35 years in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, I moved to Queens in 1993, in that gray area on the borders of Flushing, Auburndale and Fresh Meadows. My…

I resided in fab Flushing between 1993 and 2007, and during that time both on foot and by bike, familiarized myself with the older routes through the area including the maze…

I have never had even a whiff of that peculiar romance most American men feel about their automobiles. When I was a teenager, my fear and apprehensiveness when attempting to learn…

Queens has an abundance of small, out-of-the-way, ancient cemeteries, many of which go back to the 1700s, some of which are barely suspected by neighbors. Ancient burial grounds are alngside…

While making your way through the southeastern part of Flushing as you get close to Cunningham Park, you may spot the occasional white-painted overpass crossing the street. They’re not old…