NOT having a plan is sometimes the same as having a plan. The month of August continually disappoints me. Every year, I call it the month “anything can happen.” It’s…
Long Island City
-
-
This 6-story 400,000-square foot Queens Plaza North monster, built in 1911 at 27th Street, once turned out horse-drawn carriages and automobiles for the Brewster brand, and later Rolls Royce automobiles,…
-
The Astoria Elevated runs from Queensboro Plaza north to Ditmars Boulevard on 31st Street; it has been here since 1917, and was originally run in an unusual joint operation by…
-
Sound Street runs for only a block in Astoria, between 23rd Avenue and Astoria Boulevard, one-way south, yet it does bring traffic to a bridge crossing the Grand Central Parkway.…
-
Why write about a bar on Broadway in Astoria that closed a couple of years ago? It turns out there’s probably some Long Island City history in the name. It’s…
-
It’s amazing, to me at least, how Queens subway stations preserve street names and family names that, in some cases, go all the way back to the colonial era. Names…
-
For quite awhile, I was puzzled by the inscription on the cornerstone of the handsome brick building at Broadway and 44th Street, “L.I.C. T.V. 1875.” Television? 1875? Some research revealed…
-
Jason Antos recently snapped this photo of a near-pristine Coca-Cola ad at 23-08 Jackson Avenue near the #7 train overpass; the Court Square station is nearby. The ad is from…
-
I happened to be at Book Culture, a new independent bookstore on Jackson Avenue in Hunters Point, in March 2019 to attend a book signing: The Mets’ Art Shamsky and…
-
The Vernon-Jackson #7 train stop in Hunters Point is one of my favorites. It was opened in June 1915 as one of the two original stations on what is today…
-
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…
-
Though some of my gigs haven’t ended the way I would’ve liked, I’m pretty proud of where I’ve been over the years. My longest term was two stints totaling 12 years…