Midwood

Once upon a time, telephone customers were assigned alphanumeric telephone numbers. For example, the numbers were such as FOundation 8-3556 (now 368-2556), MOnument 2-2491 (now 662-2491) or NEvins 8-3886 (now 638-3886). The…

Forgotten Fan Bill Mangahas passed along this photo taken a few years ago by Jay Bendersky of a painted building ad on Avenue J just east of Coney Island Avenue.…

An unusual item turned up while I was attending a wake on Tuesday (April 16th). I disdain wakes, and I’ll have to make sure I don’t get one. I understand…

I was fresh from the “Parade of Trains,” an MTA event in which BRT Brooklyn Union Elevated cars from 1900-1910, BRT/BMT Standards and BMT Triplex Cars from the 1920s, and R1/R9…

In late December 2001 I had a toothache and so found myself in the dentist chair in Bay Ridge on Christmas Eve for some emergency treatment. With mouth still numb,…

By GARY FONVILLE Forgotten New York correspondent If you live in NYC, you know that construction is ever present.  If you don’t believe that concept, take a stroll around Downtown Brooklyn…

On a recent jaunt in Midwood, Brooklyn I made sure to check on a pair of classic neon drugstore signs I’ve been aware of for quite some time. Unfortunately the…

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the only President elected for four terms, served from 1933 to 1945, seeing the USA through the Great Depression and most of World War II. He…

While Green-Wood and perhaps Evergreens get all the Brooklyn cemetery publicity, there’s another one smack in the center of the borough that’s fairly unnoticed, except if you are looking out…

There was a time when banks were considered to be impenetrable fortresses where our hard-earned savings were kept, insured against robberies, eminently trustworthy and impregnable. Bank architecture reflected that belief…

I’m perhaps late with this one, but word recently trickled back to me that a Forgotten New York favorite, the Avenue H stationhouse, had had a makeover, after it survived a…

I should really do more on Ocean Avenue in Brooklyn. It runs continuously from Flatbush Avenue at Prospect Park all the way south to Sheepshead Bay, standing in for East…