Don’t let the squat little Rite Aid storefront on Manhattan Ave in Greenpoint fool you… It has a big history. A movie theater for most of its life, you can see it below in 1928 when it was known as the Fox Meserole showing silent films (the advertised Baby Mine was made in 1928 –…
I’ve been scouting warehouse rooftops in Brooklyn on the East River recently. Though this one in Greenpoint has a pretty great view… …what really impressed me is that I had apparently stumbled into racquetball heaven! There were dozens and dozens of racquetballs all over the roof, which I can only assume are from kids playing…
I was walking down Hudson Ave today in Brooklyn’s Vinegar Hill neighborhood when I realized I’d never taken any of the roads leading east. Why not? I guess I’ve always just assumed everything in that corner of Brooklyn to be ConEd-type utility plants, never a good place to do any sort of filming. Always looking…
I was scouting around Red Hook today when I noticed this old brick warehouse: While the building itself is neat, what really caught my attention were all the warning signs: So in summary: Violators Will Be Prosecuted, possibly by: And in case those dogs don’t work out: And hey, because we can’t have too many…
Hidden on the second floor of this building adjacent to the JMZ elevated train line in South Williamsburg is Frenchie’s Gym, a slice of authentic old school Brooklyn culture that has somehow managed to avoid the gentrification wrecking ball rapidly swinging toward it. Blink and you’ll miss it. From the ground level, the only evidence…
I love seeing these signs gracing lamp poles in the North Williamsburg area because, to my understanding, they were put up long before the area went through its current day gentrification. Sort of like if you put in shopping district signs, maybe a shopping district will follow? But North Williamsburg is not the only neighborhood…
I was driving down Bedford Ave around the Crown Heights area in Brooklyn when I passed this great neo-Gothic building at Sterling Place…and noticed something that made me stop and get out to take pictures. Right at the top center of the curve is this emblem: Crazy, right? Apparently, this was once an auto showroom…
I love traveling down Flatbush Ave past Prospect Park because there’s so much history to find hidden on every block. I noticed this Oldsmobile ghost sign (ghost sign: a business sign remaining from a long defunct business) at the corner of Avenue D and Flatbush above a liquor store: God knows how long ago this…
The two square blocks bordered by Union and Lorimer Aves. and Devoe and Powers Sts. in Williamsburg are as pleasant a place as any to live in Brooklyn. The streets are tree-lined and relatively quiet, yet only a short distance from everything Williamsburg has to offer. But the area wasn’t always residential. I was looking…
I love Forgotten NY’s Street Necrology section, in which they pour over old city maps to find streets and roads that no longer exist – some having been covered by buildings or parks, others renamed or rerouted, others simply gone. I also love finding evidence of dead streets, and am wondering if I might have…