Upper East Side

I’ve never been in the Subway Inn in either of its locations, but that’s OK, I’m really here to mention its red neon sign, which survived its transplant. For eight decades…

Continued from Part One During the waning light of November 2015, we had a spectacular midweek day — it could have been the day after Thanksgiving — and word had…

Sequestered along quiet East 92nd Street east of Park Avenue are a trio of grand old wooden houses with porches, distinctive in the Upper East Side due to their contrast…

I found myself shambling north on York Avenue in the dishrag New York heat and humidity (wasn’t even that hot yet, being May) and was wondering if I would escape…

Here’s an original Twin lamppost from 5th Avenue’s original batch, first installed two to each intersection in the early 1890s. This original design was used exclusively on 5th Avenue but…

Keep looking down — you never know what you might find.   Several years ago FNY did a survey on the various pieces of Avenue A that still exist uptown,…

For some reason Manhattan’s east side has always had more north-south avenues than the west. Between 3rd and Park (4th Avenue) comes Lexington Avenue and between Park and 5th Avenue…

Are painted ads on the sides of buildings coming back? Perhaps, but based on this one at Lexington Avenue and East 83rd Street, maybe some instruction on technique is necessary.…

While recently negotiating Kadath in the Cold Waste, i.e., the Upper East Side on a 25-degree afternoon, I reacquainted myself with William Thomas Stead (1849-1912), a pioneering British man of letters…

The likes of your webmaster would have never been allowed past the red velvet rope, but I did manage to get a photo of the sign outside Elaine’s, the Upper…

The slotted Donald Deskey lamppost was introduced on Broadway and Murray Street in 1958, and by the early 1960s they were being installed by the thousands on main avenues, side…

This apartment building at 3rd Avenue and East 94th Street leaves no doubt about what the cross-street is. Looking at this sign, I think about typographic styles, especially the one…