Van Cortlandt Park

NEW York’s first water system was built between 1837 and 1842. Prior to those years, water was obtained from cisterns, wells and barrels from rain. Construction began in 1837 on…

THE Amalgamated Houses, seen here on Van Cortlandt Park South and Hillman Avenue, was the first union-sponsored housing cooperative in the United States, sponsored by the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union…

I have begun to pay more attention to platform lighting on elevated subway stations, which comes in a variety of posts from the earliest ornate ones, to the purely functional…

Continued from Part 1 I’m continuing my “Under the El” series, which recently visited 31st Street in Astoria, with a walk under Manhattan’s last remaining el, which continues on as…

Only a few horse troughs, or drinking fountains, remain around town. I’ve noted ones placed by The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and funded by Edith…

There’s a park trail in Van Cortlandt Park that was once a railroad. It can be reached by walking east through the park directly from the W 242nd Street stop on…

Heavy snow in NYC winters is unpredictable.  A series of winters with little snow can be followed by years of blizzardy winters.  But a fearsome, freak blizzard in early March 1888…

In Country Days in New York City, author Divya Summers describes this old commuter line that is now used for another purpose: The Old Putnam Railroad Track, a defunct railroad bad…

In New York City, between the golden age of cast-iron lampposts, approximately 1895 and 1950, and prior to the brave new world of green-white fluorescent bulbs (which held sway between…

Once upon a time, New York City avenues were dominated by a long-armed, chocolate-colored cast-iron pole that my fellow lamppost maven Jeff Saltzman (whose site you can reach here) calls…

There are still a few of them left and some are actually working. “Crescent moon” style luminaires, called “crescents” because of their shape, were in vogue from the mid-40s until…