These lovely figures decorate the facade of the Evelyn, at 78th Street and Columbus Avenue—one of the city’s oldest apartment buildings, built in 1885. Hard to believe that just 25 years ago, t...
David Ruggles (right) was a brave man. Born a free African American in Connecticut in 1810, he moved to New York in the 1820s as a seaman and grocer. A decade later, he became a leader in the city...
Not everyone would agree that these cast-iron lids qualify as art. But there’s a certain beauty to the design of some 19th century examples still found all over New York. This cover, spotted in...
This stereoscopic card shows the city’s Memorial Day parade in 1875, as it winds its way down Broadway at Bond Street. In 1875, it was called Decoration Day—taken from the practice of decoratin...
Mayor La Guardia was a busy man during the Depression summer of 1936, the hottest on record in the United States. Through June, July, and August, he attended dedication ceremonies at the 11 brand-new...
At 72nd Street and Columbus Avenue, a lovely stained glass ice cream sign hides above a cafe, affixed to the second floor of a corner building. It looks very 1920s or 1930s, but it’s a ghost si...
On a rundown tenement in Harlem, this street address affixed to the building as kind of a scroll is a bit of random loveliness and a reminder of a more fanciful city. The other corner should have one...
Did these two buildings, on Third Avenue near 57th Street, start out as twins? They’re about the same size and width, and it makes sense that both began their life a hundred years ago or so as ...
Eddie Lee Mays had no idea how history would remember him. But the Harlem resident occupies a distinct place in corrections record books. On August 15, 1963, he was the last person put to death by Ne...
Martin Lewis titled this drypoint etching Arch, Midnight. The people under the arch don’t look like they’re up to much good. He reportedly considered two alternate titles, “Archway,...
Born around 1910, these seniors were little kids during World War I, teenagers in the booming but dry 1920s, and then had the misfortune to earn their degrees during the worst economic climate in the...
Many city subway stations are decorated with stained glass art. But there seems to be a lot of it on the J line, installed over the last decade. Coincidence? I have no idea. But it’s lovely to ...
Louis Comfort Tiffany—son of Charles Tiffany, founder of Tiffany & Co, the famed jeweler then located on Prince Street and Broadway—is better known for his lovely stained glass works. But as a yo...
The demolition of the old Pennsylvania Station in October 1963 is considered a city tragedy, a “monumental act of vandalism,” as The New York Times put it at the time. It was also a catal...
I love the compact rooftop houses that pop on on residential buildings all over the city—especially when they look like they belong on Cape Cod or in the Catskills rather than Chelsea or the West Vil...
At the entrance to the Children’s Zoo in Central Park is this enchanting sculpture of a dancing boy, two dancing goats, and some curious birds. They’re on top of the Lehman Gates, donated...
Since 1869, more than 800,000 paupers and unknowns have been buried on Hart Island. This slip of land in the East River is New York’s Potter’s Field, where inmates from nearby Rikers Isla...
It’s a treat to walk into a nondescript commercial building tucked away on a Manhattan side street, then be greeted by an elaborate scene painted on a lobby wall or ceiling. Rockefeller Center&...
It’s very strange to see the Statue of Liberty’s enormous hand and torch parked in front of the western side of Madison Square—a genteel, elite neighborhood at the end of the 19th century...
Some Native Americans called it “Mahicannittuck,” or “place of the Mohicans.” Dutch explorers first named it Mauritius, in honor of Prince Maurice of Nassau. But the river we ...
A buck bought you a lot of food at the Rice Bowl, a Cantonese place at 44 Mott Street: “in the heart of Chinatown,” as the massive menu points out. Open from 1939 to 1970, it was a “...
In 1936, artist Reginald Marsh, known as a social realist for his depictions of a bustling, sensual, grotesque city, painted this scene of the old clashing with the new on 14th Street. “Painted...
There sure were a lot of orphanages in Manhattan in the late 19th century. I counted 20 in King’s Handbook of New York City, from 1892. Some were founded by nonsectarian organizations; others b...
It’s an icon of the modern financial marketplace, a symbol of Wall Street’s might. But this three-ton bronze statue, officially called Charging Bull, wasn’t something anyone on Wall...
Graffiti artist Chico painted this mural in 2001 on the side of a building at Third Avenue and 103rd Street. Animal Care and Control—the city pound—is up the block on 110th. His animal-themed murals ...
On December 10, 1910, Dorothy Arnold was just another 25-year-old Upper East Side heiress. In six weeks, she’d be the most famous missing woman in New York City. Wearing a tailored blue coat an...
Lou G. Siegel (reportedly the G. stood for nothing) was a Romanian immigrant who opened his eponymous kosher restaurant on West 38th Street in 1917. The timing couldn’t have been better. West 3...
Faded ads that are preserved in full are treasures. But most of the old signage found around the city consists of just one or two legible words—maybe a name or a type of service. Whose business was i...
Little Syria, Little Hungary, the Jewish Quarter: Manhattan really used to be a collection of tight ethnic enclaves. From the 1930s through the 1960s, Lexington Avenue below 34th Street was Little Ar...
At the southwest corner of Bleecker Street and LaGuardia Place is a fenced-in patch of green that appears to be part of Silver Towers, two 1960s apartment houses owned by New York University. But it&...
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