Queens

Parking lots around town sometimes feature ancient streetlamps that were never part of the streetlighting mix employed by the Department of Traffic, later Department of Transportation in NYC, such as…

Amazingly, though Flushing can claim two buildings from the 17th century (Manhattan has none), 18th Century buildings are few and far between! The Kingsland Homestead has been located in three…

By SERGEY KADINSKY Forgotten NY correspondent In the city’s pursuit of a perfect rectilinear street grid, topography was not an obstacle. As the city expanded northward, roads in upper Manhattan…

Tonsor Street runs from Metropolitan Avenue at Andrews Avenue three blocks southeast to Greene Avenue in Ridgewood. Toward its north end it makes a dramatic curve on a hill, permitting a view…

Just a quickie on this Thanksgiving Day. Here’s an unusual partnership in Bayside — there are usually separate poles for street signs and stop signs, even though stop signs are…

Pictured here, at 43rd Avenue and 159th Street, my former address in eastern Flushing, are new and old methods of indicating a fire alarm is nearby. On the bottom is…

This rather nondescript factory building at Jamaica Avenue and 184th Place in Hollis produced the stuff that kids’ dreams were made of for Ideal Toys for several decades from the…

By SERGEY KADINSKY Forgotten NY correspondent With the memories of the Vietnam War reignited on its half-century mark , it is fitting on Veterans Day to remember one small park in Howard Beach…

This is obviously not a recent photo; it’s from January 2009, after the stoplights had been removed from this Olive post at 110th Street and 69th Road in Forest Hills. Traffic…

I may be a little unobservant, but I seem to be seeing fewer and fewer pawnshops around New York City these days. I’m sure there are still some around, but most of…

Continued from Part 2 Time for another entry in Puzzlements, Forgotten New York’s examination of noncontextual street names, especially named streets smack in the middle of areas featuring numbered or lettered…

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,…