Park Slope

It turns out that Brooklyn had a “dry” or alcohol-free town decades before Staten Island’s Prohibition Park, now known as Westerleigh. While Prohibition Park was established in 1887 and strictly…

Continued from Part 1 5th Avenue in Brooklyn is merely one of a sequence of numbered avenues in western Brooklyn that run from 1st to 28th Avenues. While some like…

RETURNING to a well-worn route in my experience, 5th Avenue. Five happens to be my favorite number for some reason, as I have spent considerable time on 5th Avenue. Not…

BACK in April 2024, I walked 5th Avenue in Park Slope, since I haven’t done so in a few years. Recently, I’ve been more drawn to commercial strips because of…

OVER the past decade or so, a new variant on the Bell lamp fixture theme has been popping up on Brooklyn streets. I haven’t noticed them yet in any other…

WAY back in 2011 I walked Union Street all the way from the waterfront in Carroll Gardens to Prospect Park; I haven’t yet made my way to where Union Street…

BELIEVE me, I wouldn’t publish this photo of the depicted sign, at 7th Avenue and 1st Street in Pasrk Slope, if it hadn’t already been replaced. When I went by…

ONE of my favorite subway websites is Vanshnookenraggen, the pseudonym of Andrew Lynch, who writes about a NYC subway system that never was, or one that never will be. Entries…

THE French Renaissance Grand Prospect Hall, 263 Prospect Avenue just south of 5th Avenue in Park Slope, was familiar to NYC viewers from its ubiquitous commercials: “We make your dreams come true!”…

UNLIKE the late, great Lou Rawls, I’m not a “natural” man. By that I mean that in my walks around NYC, I much prefer the more urban areas, as the…

In the days before central plumbing, you had to attend to the necessities somehow. New York City used to feature dozens of public baths. A remaining one, on 268 East…

A State Education Department of New York sign, created in 1952, hangs in front of an American Legion hall at 3rd Avenue and 9th Street, stating that remains of the 1st…