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Some of my favorite sites, NYC, transit-related and otherwise...

NEW! BROOKLYN CITY STREETCAR COMPANY. Is the revival of Brooklyn trolleys again imminent?

NEW! THE TRAVELER Physicist/ethnographer Galen Frysinger has been everywhere. Literally.

NEW YORK SONGLINES
Jim Naureckas' ultra-comprehensive look at NYC's byways, with emphasis on music-related sites. Don't miss it!

NEW YORK CITY WALK
Caleb Smith has walked every street in Manhattan

OFFICERS' ROW
Scenes from the Brooklyn Navy Yard

BRIDGE AND TUNNEL CLUB
Scenes around town not to be missed

LOST CITY EXPLORERS
Where Your Webmaster is too chicken to go

Visit PINKSMITH for the latest in beautiful wall mural artwork

ADAM FIX' Baltimore Ghosts
Just like Forgotten NY, but in Baltimore

RACHELLE B'S STREET WRITING

John Leita's LONG ISLAND ODDITIES

1) No aficionado of the New York City transit system...or New York itself...can afford to miss New York City Subway Resources, the world's #1 unofficial New York City subway site. Just about everything you wanted to know about the NYC subway system...along with hundreds of photographs of the system, past and present. The Staten Island Railway and PATH trains are also dealt with thoroughly!

2) If you've always been fascinated with the lampposts and "street furniture" of New York City, as I am, you should visit Jeff's Streetlite Site, created and managed by my friend Jeff Saltzman. There are pictures, descriptions and plenty of photographs of lampposts in NYC past and present, as well as Jeff's reminiscences of street lighting past.

3) I didn't know about Jeff's Streetlite Site until I first chanced upon Steve Anderson's Roads Of Metro New York page. Every expressway, parkway and state route in the New York City are described and detailed histories of each road are provided. Also featuring roads that were never built, such as the Lower Manhattan and Cross-Brooklyn Expressways!

4) Robert Andersen (no relation, presumably) has created an excellent Unofficial Long Island Railroad History page, which concentrates mainly on the still-extant remnants of now-defunct Long Island Railroad lines. Where were the stops on the LIRR Bay Ridge Branch? Where are the remains of the Evergreen Branch? Find out here.

5) The very first highway built especially for cars stretched from Fresh Meadows to Lake Ronkonkoma from 1908 into the 1930s. Since then, the Vanderbilt Motor Parkway has been converted to parkland, built upon, and even become a major highway in a couple of sites. Sam Berliner's Long Island Motor Parkway page is an excellent site devoted to this unique highway.

6) Joe Brennan has created a comprehensive webpage devoted to every station in the NYC subways that has ever closed, as well as a few local railroad stations that are no more.

7) Joe Korman has a fascinating and informative page, the JoeKorNer, on the history of NYC subways.

8) The Penny Bridge station, named for a former LIRR stop, is a comprehensive guide not only to local NYC railroads, but nationwide. Railbuffs will while away hours on this site.

9) The Museum Of The City Of New York, on 5th Avenue and 102nd Street, is an indispensable resource for anyone who loves the rich history of New York City.

10) Transportation Alternatives is dedicated to making NYC more hospitable for bicycling, walking and any activity that does not require a motor vehicle.

11) My friend Frank Jump started photographing old, faded ads on the sides of buildings about the same time I did, and I have to say he's been considerably more successful at it than I have...he's been exhibited at the New-York Historical Society and is planning a book devoted to these ghostly remnants. Here's his site.

12) New York Radio Guide is a comprehensive site dealing with the titular subject. Dozens of radio and music links.

13) The Museum Of The City Of New York. Upper east side repository of New York's history, famed and otherwise.

14) NOBODY captured the zeitgeist of New York City better than Weegee. Take a look at his photos here.

15) John Gomez' "The Hudson & Manhattan Railroad Powerhouse of Jersey City" page.

16) Paul Matus' Rapidtransit.net devoted to the appreciation of electrically-powered rapid transit everywhere.

17) OLDNYC.com chronicles examines the abandoned and little used railroad lines in New York City. It also examines the routes of planned but never constructed expressways that were to serve the New York City area.

18) Lindley Farley's new Oddball NY page

19) Rob Friedman's tribute to the long-lost Bronx theme park Co-Op City is built upon, Freedomland

20) RUAVISTA explores worldwide cities and streets through their signs: images-posters, decorated shop windows or road signs-and words, in the form of signs, graffiti, ads or even its street sign plaques.

On Ruavista, you will find Eye on the Street, an online review, as well as exhibitions of street photography, an interactive space and a resources space on street and city.

1) When I was growing up, you pretty much had two choices on your radio dial for pop music...the WMCA Good Guys or the WABC All-Americans. Allan Sniffen has created a site dedicated to Dandy Dan Daniel, the late great Jack Spector, the Morning Mayor Harry Harrison, and the other Good Guys that made my childhood years bearable.

2) Actually, Allan Sniffen began his web odyssey by preparing a page dedicated to WABC MusicRadio, which outlasted the Good Guys by a good 14 years. Read about, hear plenty of clips and airchecks, and see plenty of pictures of Daaaaaaaan Ingram, Ron Lundy, Herb Oscar Anderson and other favorites from a vanished AM pop music age.

3) If you haven't heard of Robyn Hitchcock, the surreal, whimsical folk rocker, getting to the record store and buying his CDs is a good place to start, but if you want to find out what he's all about first, Fegmania! is the place to go. Plenty of Hitchcock news, reviews and newspaper articles, brought to you by a man named Woj.

4) The best kept secret in pop music throughout the 80s and 90s has been an idiosyncratic, melodic pop group from New Zealand named The Chills, which is basically Martin Phillipps and whoever happens to be in his band at any particular moment. Here's their official website.

5) Philadelphia radio station WXPN has the best playlists I've ever seen. Wonder why any local NYC stations aren't this good.

6) The Kinks need no introduction, and they've certainly got their share of websites out there, but for my Bell Atlantic phone bill, Dave Emlen has the most comprehensive site.

www.forgotten-ny.com is an Amazon.com Associate. To purchase any book in the list below, just click on the "Buy This Book At Amazon.COM" link and you will then arrive at the Amazon page for that book, and can purchase it from there.

I'll be adding more items as time goes on. The items without links are currently out of print. If you want Amazon to look for these items, let me know and I'll provide a link.

1) AIA Guide To New York City. Guide to the housing stock of the five boroughs with thousands of listings. Elliot Willensky and Norval White, 1988 Harcourt Brace Jovanovich

2) New York's Nooks And Crannies. A look at out-of-the-way sights and scenes in the five boroughs. David Yeadon, 1979 Scribners

3) The Street Book, Henry Moscow, 1978 Hagstrom. Derivation of each street name in Manhattan.
BUY this book at Amazon.COM

4) Country Days In New York City, Divya Summers, 1993 Country Roads Press. Surprising slices of the country in the five boroughs.
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5) Brooklyn Rapid Transit Trolley Lines In Queens, Vincent Seyfried, 1998 New Jersey International. Description of the trolley lines of the BRT that extended into Queens.

6) Woodside: A Historical Retrospective 1592-1994, Catherine Gregory, 1994 Woodside On The Move. History of Woodside, Queens.

7) WPA Guide To New York, Various, reprinted 1982 Pantheon. New York City as it was in 1939.
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8) Subway Ceramics, Lee Stookey, 1992 Lee Stookey. Many of the intricate, detailed terra cotta work in NYC subways from the early 1900s rendered in gorgeous color.
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9) 722 Miles: The Building Of The Subways And How They Transformed New York, Clifton Hood, 1992 Johns Hopkins University Press. The early days of the NYC subway system.
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10) Subway Lives, Jim Dwyer, 1991 Crown Publishers. A day in the life of the NYC subway system from the point of view of several riders.

11) Under The Sidewalks Of New York, Brian Cudahy, 1988 Stephen Greene Press. A detailed history of the subways with hundreds of fascinating pictures.
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12) Encyclopedia Of New York City, edited by Kenneth T. Jackson, 1995 Yale University Press. A massive encyclopedia covering everything associated with New York.
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13) Long Island: Our Story, Various, 1998 Newsday. Culled from the daily Newsday series from 1998. Mainly concerned with Nassau and Suffolk counties but contains loads of info on Brooklyn and Queens of decades past. Glossy paper with color illustrations.
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14) The Landmarks Of New York III, Barbaralee Diamondstein, 1998 Harry N. Abrams Press. Every building and neighborhood designated a New York City landmark. Some "forgotten", some not.
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15) New York Transit Memories, Harold A. Smith, 1997 Quadrant Press. Pictures and descriptions of buses, trolleys and subway cars of the past.

16) Change At Ozone Park, A History And Description Of The Long Island Rail Road Rockaway Branches, Herbert George, 1993 RAE Publishing. Detailed rendering of the LIRR Atlantic Branch, which crosssed Jamaica Bay to the Rockaways.

17) The Subways. Stan Fischler, 1997 H&M Productions. An update of Stan's earlier subways book, "Uptown, Downtown", this book contains Stan's unique POV on the NYC subway system.
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18) Historical Atlas Of New York City, Eric Homberger, 1994 Henry Holt And Company. Beautiful book chock full of color pictures and maps detailing NYC as it grew through the decades.
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19) The Other Islands Of New York City, Sharon Seitz and Stuart Miller, 1996 Countryman Press. NYC is composed of literally dozens of islands. Here is a detailed description of many of the now-abandoned islands that dot the harbor and the East River.
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20) Greenwich Village And How It Got That Way, Terry Miller, 1990 Crown Publishers. The story of Greenwich Village with plenty of pictures, some in color.
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21) Brooklyn The Way It Was, Brian Merlis, 1995 Israelowitz Publishing. Fascinating look at a Brooklyn from the early 1900s.
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22) Welcome Back To Brooklyn, Brian Merlis, 1993 Israelowitz Publishing. Earlier volume of pictures of old Brooklyn.
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23) Up In The Old Hotel, Joseph Mitchell, 1993 Vintage Books. Terrific collection of stories from the New Yorker writer of characters and places of a vanished New York City.
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24) The Neighborhoods Of Brooklyn, edited by Kenneth T. Jackson, 1998 Yale University Press. A detailed look at every neighborhood in Brooklyn.
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25) Low Life. Vivid picture of Manhattan in the 1800s. Luc Sante, 1991 Vintage
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26 History In Asphalt, John McNamara, 1978 Bronx County Historical Society. An explanation of every street name in The Bronx.
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27) McNamara's Old Bronx, John McNamara, 1989 Bronx County Historical Society. Compilation of newspaper articles describing the Bronx of decades ago.
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28) By The El, Lawrence Stelter, 1995 H&M Productions. Collection of color photographs of the Third Avenue El by the author's father. An amazing look back at the el.
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29) The Bronx It Was Only Yesterday, 1935-1965. Lloyd Ultan, Gary Hermalyn, 1992 Bronx County Historical Society. Pictures of The Bronx from mid-century.
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30) Steel Rails To The Sunrise, Ron Ziel and George Foster, 1965 Hawthorn Press. A look back at the steam era of the Long Island Rail Road.
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31) Victorian Railroad Sations Of Long Island, Ron Ziel and Richard Wettereau, 1988 Sunrise Special. Amazing look at every Long Island Rail Road station in the early 1900s.
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32) Going, Going, Gone Vanishing Americana, Susan Jonas and Marilyn Nissenson, 1994 Chronicle Books. A look back on Americana that is no more, including telephone booths, typewriters, carbon paper, vinyl records and milkmen.
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33) The Curious New Yorker, 1999 Times Books. A look at hundreds of pieces of New York City arcana, much of it not yet covered in Forgotten NY, such as wooden water tanks on NYC buildings, the "crazy clock" on Hosuton Street near Avenue A, and who was exiled to North Brother Island.
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34) Sidewalk Critic: Lewis Mumford's Writings On New York., Edited by Robert Wojtowicz, 1998 Princeton Architectural Press. A compilation of New Yorker Magazine architectural critic Lewis Mumford's reviews of New York City architecture in the 1930s.
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35) The Late Great Pennsylvania Station, Lorraine B. Diehl, paperback edition 1996 Four Walls Eight Windows. A look back at the massive, beautifully detailed Pennsylvania Station building that stood between 1910 and 1964 before "progress" brought it down.
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36) Coney Island Walking Tour, Charles Denson, 1998 Dreamland Press
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37) Butchery on Bond Street, Benjamin Feldman, 2007 Wanderer Press. A narrative history about a once infamous unsolved 1857 murder in downtown Manhattan.
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E-mail me at erpietri@earthlink.net.