Note: Chinatown Fair closed for good about two weeks after I posted this article. It’s in Chinatown, and it’s best to visit late on a Friday or Saturday night. From Canal Street, head south on Bowery past Chatham Square… …and turn right onto the dimly lit, deserted Mott Street. It’s at #8 Mott, though you’ll…
Chances are, you’ve noticed Greenwich Locksmiths in your travels through the West Village. It occupies a small storefront just south of Commerce Street on one of the stranger parcels of land in Manhattan… And though it’s been in business since 1968, it really hasn’t changed all that much. Compare the recent picture above to one…
Note: It’s gone. You know 35 Cooper Square, right? Sure you do. It’s that cute little building hidden in the shadow of the modern Cooper Square Hotel, a building best described architecturally as having been inspired by Optimus Prime’s phallus. If you had passed it today at around 4:30pm, you’d have seen a group of…
If you’re ever up at Riverside Park around Grant’s Tomb, be sure to take a moment and visit a slightly smaller grave nearby. Consisting of a simple urn and pedestal surrounded by a small fence, it’s easy to miss if you’re not looking for it… But in a way, it’s a pretty important monument: this…
To find one of my all time favorite signs in Times Square, you have to go a few blocks from the neon lights and hi-def LCD screens of New York’s bustling epicenter… …to the corner of 42nd Street and Ninth Avenue, an intersection that has remained defiantly seedy despite literally existing in the shadows of…
“Hi scoutingny! I don’t know if this would interest to you, but it is definitely unique, and should experienced at night, because you can’t see it during the day.” “On the west side of the Park Avenue sidewalk, between 36th and 37th street there is a small construction crew. I don’t know what they are…
The 8th Avenue Post Office is extremely film friendly – shoot me an email for details at nycscout@gmail.com! On October 9th & 10th, 2010, over 350 sites, tours, and events were made available to the public FREE for the annual Open House New York program. Open House New York is…well, an open house of New…
On my way out of the city for Christmas, I had to take the Shuttle train to Times Square, and happened to get on one that had been taken over by American Airlines. The exterior was pretty neat, made to look like an American Airlines plane… But what really blew me away was the interior,…
Bonus points if you can guess the hotel without looking at a map! Paid for by the same studio that couldn’t afford to reimburse me for work-related cell phone use. 🙂 -SCOUT UPDATE! Trump International.
The other day, while scouting a rooftop, my guide took me through an old elevator room and showed me the machinery, which he said mostly dates back to the 1920’s. I’m always amazed when such old technology is still in working use today… But my favorite bit was this panel, which looks almost steampunkish in…