Brooklyn
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Oldsmobile of Flatbush
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…
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What Happened To This Williamsburg Cemetery?
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…
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Bedford and Driggs, or Fourth and Fifth Aves?
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…
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Tragedy on Broadway
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 99¢ store sign is this really great sculpture,…