About Ephemeral New York
Ephemeral New York chronicles a constantly reinvented city through photos, newspaper archives, and other scraps and artifacts that have been edged into New York’s collective remainder bin. Here we remember forgotten people, places, and relics of the way New Yorkers used to live. We get a big kick out of present-day urban weirdness and idiosyncrasies too.
The site is the creation of a magazine editor from the West Village who recalls stepping over winos to enter the Grand Union on Bleecker Street, a happily chaotic class packed with 35 other first graders at PS 41, and that Mays, not Whole Foods, was once the flagship shopping destination of Union Square. Sometimes wry and often wistful, she feels the presence of the city’s ghosts everywhere.
All comments and (gentle) suggestions are welcome.
Washington Square Village, 1970s. That slide is no longer there.
May 3, 2008 at 1:24 am |
This is one of the most fascinating blogs I have ever seen. I’m hooked.
May 3, 2008 at 5:45 am |
urban decay rocks
June 23, 2008 at 7:08 am |
Absolutely love your site/blog. It is 2:30 a.m. and here I am, going backwards reading your posts. I was born and grew up in NYC and now live on the Eastern Shore of Maryland where I am in the process of prepping a heavily researched web site on Talbot County history. In addition to local history, I collect New York ephemera which gets me to the point of this missive (in addition to gushing about Ephermeral New York) — courtesy of 1941 Visitor Guide to New York that I have in my possession, I can shed some light on some of the more obscure phone prefixes (note that I cannot confirm or deny your guess regarding ‘WA’ as I can not find it referenced in my guide.) Here we go: CI – Circle;, EN – Endicott;
CA – Caledonia; PL – Plaza; WI – Wickersham; BU – Butterfield; RE – Regent; EL = ElDorado; BR – Bryant; MU – Murray Hill; VO – Volunteer; RH – Rhinelander; TR – Trafalgar; WI – Wisconsin (I know, I know, there are two WI’s listed – Wickersham and Wisconsin — maybe it allowed people to decide which side of the big pond they wanted to align themselves with); ST – Stuyvesant; GR – Gramercy; PE – Pennsylvania; BO – Bogandus; LA – Lackawanna; CO – Columbus; LE – Lexington; AC – Academy; ME – Medallion; AS – Ashland; LO -Longacre; AL – Algonquin. I only saw one reference to WI as Wisconsin, so maybe that was a misprint. One thing I’ve learned in transcribing the hundreds of newspaper articles on local history is that very little proofreading was done; however, in the defense of those who chronicled history for us did not have the luxury of spell checker and correcting things on the fly. My grandfather was the Washington Editor for the NY Daily News and I remember a Christmas Eve visit with him to News’ typeset section on 42nd St. Woe be unto the writer who suggested that the midnight run of the paper be held up to correct a mistake.
If I run into any other phone prefixes, I’ll send them your way. If I have the time, I will scan some of NYC ephemera I have and forward them on to you. Do you have a methodology in place for readers to upload files to you?
Best Regards,
Liz Lee
June 23, 2008 at 7:17 am |
Well, this is incredibly embarrassing. I failed to proofread the sentence in which I remarked that writers of yore failed to proofread their work. Believe it or not, I am one of those people who subscribes to the adage that those who fail to understand history’s mistakes are bound to repeat them. I need to go to sleep.
June 23, 2008 at 7:27 am |
Re your March 28 post regarding the man writing by candlelight on 14th st. I tried to post this in the appropriate comment section, but I kept getting “you are leaving a duplicate comment” (which I was not). My Comment:
Looking at the window above the man’s head, it would appear that the building served as a church at one time and that the writer depicted represents one of the many scribes of the early Christian church.
June 24, 2008 at 2:23 am |
I’m thrilled that you like the site, and thanks for all the great info about the phone exchanges and the origins of the man writing by candlelight on 14th Street. A church does seem like a possibility. I live a block away from that doorway, so I’m going to look into it.
I will be adding a general email address for the site soon, which would probably be the best way to send some ephemeral images.
That Talbot County site sounds really neat. I went to college in Delaware, so I’m familiar with Maryland’s Eastern Shore and the Delmarva Peninsula. It’s an odd, sort of ignored corner of the country.
June 28, 2008 at 6:51 am |
Uncovered an interesting piece of NYC trivia the other day that I thought you might find interesting. In my post regarding the phone prefixes there is mention of the prefix ‘LO’ for ‘Longacre’. In all my years in New York, that was a new one for me and I found myself unable to arrive at any obvious explanation that made it signficant enough to be assigned as a phone prefix. With many other research paths demanding my attention, I condemned ‘Longacre’ to the unsolved mysteries section of my brain and moved on. Well, lo and behold, whilst browsing a collection of old NYC images last evening the meaning of ‘Longacre’ and why it was considered a worthy phone prefix became clear. Apparently, up until about 1904 Times Square was called Longacre Square. Forgive me if this is ‘old news’ to you.
August 8, 2008 at 10:07 pm |
Thank you so much for this labor of love.
October 20, 2008 at 9:00 pm |
This is a wonderful site with so much fascinating information. I moved to New Jersey when I got married and ever since then I’ve fallen in love with the city, and because I am quite obsessed with history, I’ve also been studying New York’s past. I will definitely be back and will most likely spend a lot of time here! Thanks for all of your work on this site.
October 20, 2008 at 9:12 pm |
Thanks so much for your kind words. And welcome to the tri-state New York area!
November 4, 2008 at 7:22 pm |
well, it took me long enough. but here i am with some downtime at work (finally) and traipsing about your site. it’s totes fun.
February 1, 2009 at 7:27 pm |
I don’t know if Liz Lee is still reading this blog (her post is dated last June) but what she doesn’t seem to know is that WI could easily be both WIsconsin and WIckershom because the exchange depended on the following digit. WIsconsin 7 (which lasted as long as named exchanges did) and WIckersham 2 (wjich went away in the mid 1940s) both coexisted. Later after WIckersham 2 was abolished, WIlliams 2 was set up. Take a look at http://phone.net46.net/nyc for more details.
March 23, 2009 at 12:13 am |
Love your blog! As a graphic designer, I have always been fascinated by vintage signs, ephemera, ads, street shots, buildings, etc., especially in New York City. I was never lucky enough to have actually lived there, but I have visited over the years, and blogs such as yours helps immensely to capture the whole atmosphere, both past and present. Keep up the wonderful work!
March 24, 2009 at 3:20 am |
Thank you so much. As you can tell, I love those old signs and ads too.
April 10, 2009 at 1:14 am |
Brilliant blog. Thank you for preserving the ever-fading past of this great city.
June 18, 2009 at 1:25 pm |
A fantastic site!!! I’m a native, know a good bit about basic NYC history and do a lot of bike riding througout the five boroughs. Your site does an excellent job of “filling in the details.” Truly wonderful! Keep up the great work.
June 18, 2009 at 2:16 pm |
Thank you for the praise…especially meaningful as it’s from a homegrown New Yorker.
June 29, 2009 at 5:13 pm |
I’m a native Brooklynite now living in Europe (for a very long time now). Your site is great! My personal interest is in old time Brooklyn ice cream palors. Somehow, they were just a special world for me. Any idea where I can find information about them? They seem to have disappeared forever. Thank you.
Gloria
June 29, 2009 at 5:30 pm |
Thank you for the kind words. I don’t know where you can find info on ice cream parlors except to browse sites such as forgotten-ny.com, lostnewyorkcity.blogspot.com, and vanishingnewyork,blogspot.com. It’s a great idea for a future post here.
August 21, 2009 at 5:07 pm |
great stuff as always e. i check in all the time. we need to get together soon.
August 22, 2009 at 1:22 pm |
I’ve been living in exile in Iowa for the past 50 years…still a New Yorker at heart. My parents immigrated to NYC in 1948 when I was six. We lived on York Ave. and 67th Street and across the street was “The Gardens.” It worked like a public library; children joined, were assigned a 5×3 foot plot of land, and were helped to plant five vegetables. There was some kind of clubhouse with books on nature etc. I recall that the only thing that grew to more than a two-inch long carrot was SWISSCHARD. We had little-kid wagons full of it and would go from door to door trying to unload it, but the ethnic groups who lived in the apartments, mostly Irish and Polish, were not so enthusiastic about it. What on earth was all this about? Left-over victory gardens from the war? Some social work thing aimed at immigrants? If anyone knows, please email me!
September 16, 2009 at 3:33 am |
I’ve been on here for a couple of hours and could stay on all night; I’m hooked. Just got back from a weekend in NYC (my birthday request for 9-11) to my 300 year old house in PA; I love both NY and history. Will be back often!
September 16, 2009 at 1:01 pm |
dear wild
I just found your site and I love it. I left E. 28th St & Lex. in 1987 to upstate, and have not yet adjusted. Still a New Yorker, and proud of it.
I recently had an essay published in the local college literary mag about a trip I took from my growing up neighborhood to Times Square. I can send it, if you like. A cutesy coming of age story..
I was actually searching for a reference to the Hotel Lafayette and the long gone Hubert’s Museum on 42nd St.
I am an antiques dealer and I have 1000’s of pieces of paper (they don’t use the word ephemera up here), and I will pay more attention to NYC items in the future.
Thanks for the blog and the site. I’ll be back!!!!
alan kaplan aka uncle alan
September 16, 2009 at 2:04 pm |
Donna, thank you so much. I hope your trip to NYC on 9/11 wasn’t a total washout.
September 16, 2009 at 2:06 pm |
Alan, sure, send your essay! It’ll give me great ideas for new topics to cover. Hubert’s in Times Square is a good one, I’m going to post something on it soon.
And if you have any interesting ephemera for sale I would love to take a look.
October 31, 2009 at 10:16 pm |
Just wanted to tell you that I love this website!
November 1, 2009 at 12:04 am |
Thank you!
November 26, 2009 at 1:05 pm |
Just wanted to add that I also think your site is unique and extremely interesting. I enjoy visiting often and almost always come away with a growing curiosity about our fair city and its ghosts.