CLAPBOARD HOUSE, Stapleton

Forgotten New York -

Well, as the great Bob Grant used to say, that slams the lid on things for 2014. Closing out the year with a green clapboard house at Clinton and Brewster (yeah, I didn’t know where this was either until today) with white windows and red shutters — I bet that chimney works too. Nothing fancy [...]

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RUSSIAN AD, Brighton Beach

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Here’s a faded ad on Brighton Beach Avenue just east of Coney Island Avenue in Cyrillic characters in what I’ll presume is Russian. Translation, anybody? 12/30/14

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from Forgotten New York http://forgotten-ny.com/2014/12/russian-ad-brighton-beach/

SUNNYSIDE YARD VIADUCTS

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Queens’ Sunnyside Yards were competed in 1910, at the same time as Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan and the four tunnels that at long last brought Long Island Rail Road trains into Manhattan after the railroad had been in existence for about 75 years. The final piece in the puzzle would be the construction of the [...]

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from Forgotten New York http://forgotten-ny.com/2014/12/sunnyside-yard-viaducts/

GREENPOINT 2014, Part 2

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I have visited Greenpoint a great deal for FNY pages, and have conducted two FNY tours in the Garden Spot of Brooklyn over 15 years. My last major survey, though, happened in 2005, almost 10 years ago! There have been plenty of other pages devoted to Eckford, Milton and Noble Streets and the shop signage [...]

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from Forgotten New York http://forgotten-ny.com/2014/12/greenpoint-2014-part-2/

FIBONACCI NUMBERS, Hunters Point

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Have I ever mentioned that I got a B in a college math class? It was a proud B, since it was one of a handful of A’s and B’s I got in college courses — I was in pretty much over my head, though I did tough it out for a BA. I have, [...]

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FRENCH CLEANERS, Dyker Heights

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I can’t believe I hadn’t noticed this classic awning sign on 8th Avenue and Bay Ridge Avenue in Dyker Heights, since I must have passed it every day on the way to the subway during the 1980s. I have developed a “Forgotten eye” since then. This was taken on a Saturday afternoon, so the plaxce [...]

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ZEKE’S ROAST BEEF, Bay Ridge

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I have a 30-year history with Zeke’s Roast Beef, which served my dining needs once per week when I lived on 73rd Street and 7th Avenue in Bay Ridge and walked to the train station at 62nd Street and 8th Avenue. In that era, I worked nights, beginning at 5PM and later, at 7PM, and [...]

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PINE STREET BISHOP CROOK, Financial District

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120 Broadway, the Equitable Building, is one of those rare NYC buildings that occupy an entire block, between Broadway and Nasssau, Pine and Cedar Streets. It was designed by architect Peirce Anderson, working for Ernest Gorham and Associates, and built between 1913 and 1915; when constucted it was the largest office building in the world, [...]

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GREENPOINT 2014, Part 1

Forgotten New York -

I have visited Greenpoint a great deal for FNY pages, and have conducted two FNY tours in the Garden Spot of Brooklyn over 15 years. My last major survey, though, happened in 2005, almost 10 years ago! There have been plenty of other pages devoted to Eckford, Milton and Noble Streets and the shop signage [...]

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WHERE AM I?

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I’m where the buses don’t run. A lot. 12/18/14

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ORIGINAL FIRE ALARM INDICATOR

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Originally, NYC fire alarms, introduced in the 1880s, were indicated by lights mounted on shafts above the alarm itself. However, when cast and wrought iron streetlamps were introduced in 1892 on 5th Avenue and then spread all over the city, someone got the idea to mount the indicators on them. Special brackets were designed to [...]

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BOTTLECAP HOUSE OF BAY RIDGE

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Every so often comes along a real head-scratcher. This is an ordinary looking 2-family house on 6th Avenue and 76th Street in Bay Ridge. It was built in the early 20th Century, so the architect added some ells and dormers to make things interesting, and didn’t care to include a basement garage. A front yard [...]

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CHRISTMAS IN BAY RIDGE

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I have no intention to Dylan Thomas you, or even Greg Lake you, with this particular page. I decided, after a recent tour of the Brooklyn Army Terminal on the waterfront, to have lunch at a longtime favorite spot and then walk through Bay Ridge to the N train at 8th avenue and 62nd Street, [...]

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CAUTION SIGN, Bay Ridge

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This nearly rusted-through sign on 73rd Street between 6th and 7th Avenues (my former block) was rusty when I moved there in 1982. There are plenty of these type of signs around in many different designs — I really should do a feature on them. Most feature a graphic depiction of a child wearing what [...]

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BEDFORD AVENUE, Part 3

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Believe me, this page has been a long time coming. It’s not that it’s been heavily researched and photographed; no more so than most FNY pages. These photos were taken in June 2009, just a few weeks after my heart surgery to replace a valve on May 20th. They have been in the archives since [...]

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TYPE F LANDMARK, Maspeth

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In a neighborhood that has its share of historic structures (some of which, like the Grand Avenue “wheelwright house” have been razed in recent years), this lamppost is Maspeth’s only structure given protection by the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission. It is a decades-old “Type F” lamppost on a staircase connecting two sections of 53rd Avenue [...]

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45 MURRAY STREET, Tribeca

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45 Murray Street, part of the Tribeca South landmarked district, is a 4-story building dating from the early 20th Century that was expanded and reconstructed in 1854 by architect Samuel Warner, who designed the Marble Collegiate Church at 5th Avenue and West 29th Street. The building is notable for its fluted cast iron columns with [...]

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AMERICAN BOOK BINDERY, Chelsea

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This painted ad in exquisitely serifed lettering appears high over West 30th Street near 10th Avenue, heading east, in view of the new High Line Park. The founder was Russian immigrant Louis Satenstein, who arrived in the USA in 1889 and founded the bindery about ten years later and then merged with the Stratford Press. [...]

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GRAND STREET BRIDGE, Williamsburg-Maspeth

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Of the many bridges that cross the noxious and noisome Newtown Creek, which includes the Pulaski (McGuiness Boulevard), J.J. Byrne (Greenpoint Avenue) Kosciuszko (Brooklyn-Queens Expressway), the Metropolitan Avenue bridge, and the late lamented Penny Bridge, my favorite is the rattling Grand Street Bridge, which connects outlandishly remote sections of Brooklyn and Queens, two neighborhoods in [...]

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FDR’S MISSING MONUMENT, Midwood

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President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the only President elected for four terms, served from 1933 to 1945, seeing the USA through the Great Depression and most of World War II. He is honored by the Franklin Roosevelt Drive in Manhattan, Roosevelt Island, and dozens of other NYC memorials. However, one of his smallest memorials has been [...]

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RIDE THE 11 TRAIN

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Forgotten Fan Brenna Solop recently found this odd sign combination on the #1 train in Manhattan on one of the 1980s-vintage R-62 trains still in use. She was, of course, perplexed about the #11 sign. Notice that the color of the bullet is purple, the same color as the Flushing Line, or #7 train. At [...]

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ASTORIA 2014, Part 2

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CONTINUED FROM PART 1 Astoria…Ditmars Boulevard…the subway roll signs on the R train advertised these outlandish, far-off locales when I boarded it in Bay Ridge when I lived there for the better part of three decades, but I never really thought to trouble this northwest section of Queens, except for the occasional bicycle ride through, [...]

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PRESS, Madison Square

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I’m beginning a new Forgotten NY category called Eats, in which I talk about lunch and dinner spots I like to frequent. I’m hardly a gourmet, but there are a few non-fastfood chains around town that I find myself in quite a bit. I’m not hard to please. The food has to taste good, the [...]

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SEAGIRT SIGNS, Far Rockaway

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There are a pair of unusually-named streets on the southern edge of Far Rockaway: Seagirt Boulevard, the more important of the two, a 6-lane behemoth with a center divider that runs from the complicated confluence of Edgemere Avenue, Beach Channel Drive and Rockaway Beach Boulevard east to Doughty Boulevard in Nassau County, the approach to [...]

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238th STREET STATION, Riverdale

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I was finishing up a Forgotten NY voyage of discovery in the Bronx last week when I again noted with delight the survival of the original railings and signage holders on the platform. They have probably had a number of color scemes in their paint jobs over the years, but the ebony version is a [...]

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RUTAN-JOURNEAY HOUSE, Tottenville

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“The Rutan-Journeay House at 7647 Amboy Road, built ca. 1848, is a rare survivor of early Tottenville, an important 19th-century town on Staten Island’s South Shore. This vernacular clapboard cottage merges older local building traditions with newer Greek Revival modes. Its doorway and porch are excellent examples of the Greek Revival style. The front porch [...]

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