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FORGOTTEN REJECTS – CONTINUED FROM PAGE 2



LINNEAUS PLACE, Flushing, Queens. Likely the only street in New York City named for a Swedish botanist (Carl von Linné), Carolus Linneaus (1707-1778) developed the modern taxonomic naming system used by scientists for living species (i.e. Homo sapiens, "wise man" for our human species). The C-shaped alley in Flushing, off Prince Street north of 35th Avenue, also takes its name from the Linnaean Gardens, the nation's first commercial plant nursery run by Robert Prince and his son William beginning in 1735. Though it had gone out of business by the 1860s, other nurseries including James Bloodgood's and Robert Parsons thrived until the 20th Century. Adams, Washington and Jefferson all visited the Prince plant nursery, with Jefferson being the most enthusiastic customer. There aren't many remnants of these plant businesses left in Flushing except for the street naming system, which runs from Ash to Rose, and a stand of trees in Kissena Park opposite Parsons Boulevard. This little alley reminds us that Prince Street, named for the businessman, was originally named Linneaus Street, for the scientist.			FORGOTTEN NEW YORK HarperCollins ORDER from Amazon: paperback or hardcover


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MONTAGUE STREET at Clinton Street, Brooklyn Heights. These octagonal-shaped station entrance luminaires were developed by the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (the BRT – predecessor of the BMT) and placed along the 4th Avenue Brooklyn line in 1916 when the line was opened. This is one of a pair that has been lovingly restored and put back to its original location at the Court Street station.


	WEST 147th STREET, east of Frederick Douglass Boulevard (8th Avenue), Hamilton Heights. Omega Oil was an "all-purpose" liniment sold in the first couple of decades of the 20th Century. There are still fading Omega Oil ads around town, but this one, part of a tryptych facing a police precinct parking lot, is by far the most spectacular. Since it faces police prpoerty, the cops do not allow photography there, so you have to be cagey and shoot from across 147th Street, as was done here.


NORTHERN BLVD. and LINDEN PLACE, Flushing. The Quaker Meetinghouse has been used for religious services since 1695, when it was built (except for a brief period garrisoning British soldiers during their NYC occupation from 1776-1783). We explored inside on ForgottenTour 21.


WEST 11th STREET just east of 6th Avenue, Greenwich Village. When 11th Street was built here in the early 1800s it displaced about half of the small Shearith Israel cemetery that had been here from colonial days. The remains were disinterred and placed in a new Shearith Israel cemetery on West 21st Street just west of 6th. That cemetery, as well as this small triangular plot, what is left of the original cemetery, remain in place. An even older Shearith Israel Cemetery, dating to the late 1600s, can be found on St. James Place just south of Chatham Square.


FLATBUSH & 5TH AVENUES at DEAN STREET, Park Slope. Diagonal streets produce distinctive architecture, as architects build oddly-shaped buildings to fit odd-shaped plots. The Flatiron Building at 5th Avenue and 23rd Street in Manhattan is the city's most famous "triangle" building, but this one is home to the long-time sporting goods store named for its shape.

ATLANTIC and 5TH AVENUES, Park Slope/Fort Greene. Samuel Underberg, a food supplies company, had offices in this building for many decades, and the company made sure you knew it with large painted identification on all sids of the building. Some years ago, Underberg moved down Atlantic Avenue to Utica Avenue, and the building, and its signs, lay empty. In early 2006, it was razed by Forest City Ratner in anticipation of using the land for its Atlantic Yards project. The Brooklyn Nets arena, if built, would be on this site. "Underberg" was used by Jonathan Lethem for the first section of his novel "The Fortress of Solitude."

Satanslaundromat at Atlantic Yards (2003)


AMSTERDAM AVENUE at HAMILTON PLACE, Hamilton Heights. We've seen how a triangular plot can produce distinctive architecture. A triangle formed by the abovenamed avenues and West 143rd Street is graced by the last remaining of what I call "imperial" Twinlamp castiron lampposts, which featured regular Type 24 Twin brackets accentuated by extra ironwork at their crests, such as the spike shown here, and a miuch heavier fluted base, which were used at important intersections. Unfortunately, while in the rest of the city castirons or their retro modern cousins sport esthetically pleasing reproductions of classic luminaires, this post still carries ungainly 1980s "bucket" sodium fixtures.


	AMSTERDAM AVENUE south of WEST 145TH STREET. Between 1960 and 1982 the WABC "All-Americans," led by Dan Ingram and Cousin Bruce Morrow, spun stacks of wax and helped usher in music's "British Invasion" led by the Beatles. By 1982 the format had become less popular and the format changed to all-talk. This ad on Amsterdam Avenue dates to the mid-1970s. In late 2005, WABC brought back the Musicradio format...on Saturday nights between 6 and 10PM. Fun fact: The WABC DJ's were originally collectively known as the "Good Guys"...a nickname appropriated by WMCA's mid-60s deejay cast, which made it much more famous.


	UNIVERSITY and SEDGWICK AVENUES, Morris Heights. A look skyward at a building at Sedgwick Avenue and University Avenue (martin Luther King Blvd.) reveals a 30-foot tall lighthouse cast in bronze. It is the home office of the H.W. Wilson Company, a venerable bibliography and periodical index publisher; among their titles are the Readers Guide to Periodical Literature and Current Biography. The company also maintains a voluminous online reference database. Halsey William Wilson began the indexing publisher with partner Henry Morris in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1889 as a bookseller. Wilson tired of searching though publishers’ catalogs, and hit on an idea to publish his own catalog of new books that would be constantly updated. Wilson’s first Cumulative Book Index appeared in 1898, and by 1901 had expanded to include magazine articles. In 1911 the company moved to White Plains, NY and again in 1917 to the present location near the Harlem River. In 1929, the eight-story building with the lighthouse was built. The lighthouse, resting on an open book, is meant to “give guidance to those seeking their way through the maze of books and periodicals, without which they would be lost." At night, the entire structure is lit: in 1998, the company’s centennial, the lighthouse was relit after being out of commission for several years.

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