One of my favorite blocks in Manhattan is West 46th Street btw. 5th and 6th Avenues. An incredibly diverse mix of styles are represented there, ranging from art deco buildings to brownstones. All were built prior to 1930 and very little has been done since, making the block essentially an architectural museum. West 46th is…
On 8th Ave btw. 39th and 40th is this really great faded travel sign, complete with an arrow on the right side pointing down to where a (long gone) travel agency used to be. I love finding remnants of old travel ads throughout the city. In a world of Travelocitys and Expedias, the idea of…
I’m standing on the corner of 23rd and Park Ave South… So why does that building on the corner say 4th Ave? This is another one of those great “walked by it a thousand times, never noticed” quirks. Now the shortest avenue in Manhattan, Fourth Ave was once all of Park Ave until it was…
I’ve been scouting for something around Times Square/Hell’s Kitchen over the last week (as evidenced by some of my recent posts), and I noticed this great building on 9th Ave between 52nd and 53rd. Above each window on the second and third floor are these awesome busts of…well, I’m not really sure what. They sort…
It’s funny how you stumble on interesting bits in the unlikeliest of places. I was scouting Broadway in Brooklyn, which runs underneath the elevated JMZ train and is basically a series of greasy restaurants, dollar stores, and bodegas. If you look closely, partially covered up by the 99ยข store sign is this really great sculpture,…
A neat old brick wall ad on the side of the New York Inn (8th Ave btw. 46th & 47th): I love that at the time this sign was put up, the hotel had to advertise these amenities as if you might not get them otherwise: Furnished (?) Rooms 1-2-3 | Steam Heat | Housekeeping…
I love religious crosses with neon-lettering attached to buildings, especially when they have ominous messages. Ignoring the tackiness factor, the fact that anyone seriously thinks these are still effective in modern day New York, to the point where they continue to replace the neon, is just incredible to me…and in a way, makes them all…
After posting about the Beach House on an East Village apartment roof, one of our readers, Karen, commented that it reminded her of the rooftop house on 13th and 3rd, above the Kiehl’s store. Today was the first time I had a chance to check it out, and sure enough, there’s a clapboard house –…
I’m not sure how well you can see these from the ground, but adorning the corners of this building are some great pharaohs, complete with headdresses and wings: As a sidenote, if you look at the buildings to the left, you’ll see some bear heads keeping watch: -SCOUT
New York is overfilled with flashy, archetypal steel-and-glass diners that look like they were transported here directly from the 1950’s. Sadly, as the city has become more and more gentrified, most of them have become carbon copies of each other in terms of quality (shitty) and price (rip-off). One of my favorite diner exteriors is…