Dear Scout – Love your site! I’ll be visiting Manhattan for the first time in a few weeks, but I’ll only be in town for a few days. Can you offer any advice on what to see/do in my short time there? Thanks! – A Frequent Reader Every week, I receive a number of emails…
I was scouting recently in northern Long Island and happened to drive by this old moving/storage company garage… I love the vintage sign, complete with the old telephone interchange – in this case, ORiole refering to OysteR Bay, NY. Confirming the sign’s authenticity, the company’s telephone number still ends in 6-0114 to this day. However,…
I received a very unexpected email last week asking if I’d like to check out a hidden prohibition-era bowling alley in Queens. Uh, yes, definitely interested. I took a trip to see it today – Just incredible: According to the owner, the bowling lanes were hidden under boxes and boxes of junk. After researching the property,…
By the time I got there, it was gone. The World’s Fair, you ask? Nope. I am referring to something far more unbelievable… That’s right: Queens once had an honest-to-God Parks Department-approved fountain named “Fountain of the Planet of the Apes.” And if that’s not odd enough, an identical fountain on the opposite side of…
Staring down 54th Street from 31st Ave in Woodside, Queens, a street lined with boxy brick apartments and a scant bit of foliage, one would not expect to find one of the oldest cemeteries in New York nestled in amongst the buildings… But there it is, halfway down the block: the Moore-Jackson Cemetery, founded in…
I must have walked past the entrance to Marble Cemetery on Second Ave (btw. 2nd & 3rd Sts.) countless times before I first noticed its existence (and I’m guessing I’m not the only one). Sandwiched between two buildings is this iron gate (technically 41 1/2 Second Ave), which is locked 99% of the year. Even…
A few weeks ago, I wrote about PS 110, an elementary school located just south of the Williamsburg Bridge… …whose roof is lined with a number of really great stone owls (a parliament of owls, to use the correct phrasing!). I notice the owls every time I cross the Williamsburg Bridge, and I mentioned in…
Halloween is the only time of the year that I actually pay attention to store window displays, and I’m always impressed by the offerings on Bleecker Street in the West Village. I took a bike ride down Bleecker today to take some pictures (I’m convinced there’s some sort of secret neighborhood association that spreads extra…
“New York, You’ve Changed” is a new Scouting NY feature in which the New York depicted in movies is compared with the city of today. Not just the usual list of shooting locations, this is a full shot-by-shot dissection to see what New York once was and what it has become, for better or worse….
Just finding us? Start with Part 1 of our Taxi Driver examination to avoid confusion! Continuing along where we last left off, Travis takes Betsy to Times Square for their ill-fated movie date. Exactly where they are is tough to place as they walk along Broadway/7th Ave, but based on the median, I believe they’re…