Queens

Unfortunately my copy of the Dripps 1852 Queens map does not run all the way to the East River; however, it does show quite a bit of what eventually became…

Maspeth, in a western corner of Queens east of Greenpoint and Williamsburg, Brooklyn and west of Middle Village, seems stuck between the grit of Brooklyn and the airy, almost suburban feel…

I’m fascinated with a Dripps atlas of Queens made in 1852 I stumbled on awhile ago, as I am with most old maps. At that remote time Millard Fillmore was…

Many years ago, when Queens was a collection of small towns divided by acres of farms and fields, every town and city had its own street naming and numbering system. This…

During a recent stroll from Flushing to Jamaica down Parsons Boulevard, I was surprised to see this painted-on-bricks ad on the southwest corner of Parsons and Hillside Avenue had reappeared.…

I haven’t got much today except a look at this ancient, rusted signpost left over from the early days of the Grand Central Parkway, built from the Triboro Bridge to…

In this photo taken in early 1931, we are standing at two streets that don’t presently exist in the current form, or under the names shown on the photo. In 1931…

I feel like doing another quick Sunday page this week instead of beginning a multi-parter, so I’ll draw on some images I got while visiting friends on Stockholm Street in…

In 2014, I wrote about the unusual pedestrian ramp arrangement at the Clearview Expressway and 39th Avenue in Bayside. In this situation, the Long Island Rail Road is bridged across…

From the archives, here’s a winter view of the Lefferts Boulevard Bridge spanning the Long Island Rail Road, one of the more unusual bridges in Queens. Why, you ask? It’s…

The latest Google Street View reveals that this arrowhead sign (I photographed in 2012) pointing the way to the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge has been duly expunged from the perch it had…

In 2005 FNY correspondent Christina Wilkinson wrote FNY’s flagship Sunnyside entry, but I’ve revisited the western Queens neighborhood repeatedly for lamppost stylings, forgotten roadways, its many languages, and business signs.…