West 122nd Street, starting at Marcus Garvey/Mt. Morris Park, is lined on both sides with gorgeous, well-preserved brownstones.
If you can look past the parked cars, walking down the street is almost like going into a Gilded Age time warp.
Built at the turn of the century, the street was known as “Doctors’ Row” because so many professionals chose to reside there.
Another Doctors’ Row—well, at least the love row houses, if not the doctors—still exists in the South Bronx.
Some of the letters in this Gertel’s sign don’t look like they light up, yet that’s okay. Seeing the words “bakery” and “luncheon” one on top of the other in that old-time font more than makes up for it.
Luncheon: This old-school word is disappearing fast from the New York vocabulary.
Gertel’s home had been Hester Street since 1914. They relocated near Myrtle Avenue in Clinton Hill in 2008, taking the iconic sign with them.
I have no idea how long G&M Variety Discounts House has been on Broadway in Washington Heights. But judging from the shape of the sign, I’d say since the 1960s.
These 19th century–looking numbers and letters on random buildings give the city such an old-timey vibe. A terra cotta relief on East Ninth Street marks a particularly lovely apartment building:
No. 1 Sylvan Terrace, in Harlem, has a very colonial feel:
This walkup on Weekhawken Street is especially sweet; the entire street name is painted above the door:
“Walk Your Horses” say the inscriptions on the entry gates that lead to the alleys of Strivers’ Row, a two-block time capsule back into Harlem history.
Like a lot of the neighborhood, these aristocratic townhouses, spanning 138th and 139th Streets between Frederick Douglass Boulevard and Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard, were built in the 1890s for wealthy whites.
But when white New Yorkers deserted Harlem just a decade later, middle- and upper-class black families moved in—hence the striver reference. Each house had modern plumbing, detailed woodwork, and shared back courtyards. Plus stables for horses, of course.
Strivers’ Row mixes a couple of different architectural styles. (Stanford White had his hand in designing some). The result is a harmonious couple of blocks as lovely as any in the Village or brownstone Brooklyn—but lesser-known, practically a neighborhood secret.
During the 1920s and 1930s, Seventh Avenue in the 130s was nicknamed the Boulevard of Dreams, a stretch of Harlem lined with top theaters and clubs such as the Lafayette Theater and Connie’s Inn.
Between these venues was a lone elm tree (see it above) known as the Tree of Hope, bringing good luck to any up-and-coming entertainer who touched it before hitting the stage—as Ethel Waters, Eubie Blake, and other legends supposedly did.
The tree didn’t last long though; it was chopped down in 1934 when the city widened Seventh Avenue. Part of it went to the Apollo Theater, while the rest was cut up into souvenirs.
A second tree was soon planted in its place by Bill (Bojangles) Robinson, but that too met the ax.
This plaque, however, serves as a reminder of it on Seventh Avenue and 131st Street.
This old-timey sign belongs to a store on Myrtle Avenue in Clinton Hill. the UL exchange stood for Ulster.
But what was Ulster? It’s a mystery. A New York Times article from February 1947 announced that 4,200 households in Flatbush “who have wanted telephone installations since the beginning of the war” would be getting UL numbers.
Strangely, Joe’s Superette, on Smith Street in Carroll Gardens, also has a UL number. That’s a bit of a hike from Myrtle Avenue.
Meanwhile, on a residential building in Harlem, the “In Case of Emergency” number above still stands next to an elevator shaft. LE for Lenox Avenue.
One was at Ninth Avenue and 33rd Street. Another stood on Spring Street. In all, fire-prone 19th-century New York City was dotted with 11 fire watchtowers.
Made of cast iron, each tower contained a huge bell that a guard, positioned there at all hours, would ring whenever flames were spotted nearby.
The only fire watchtower still standing is in Mount Morris Park—aka Marcus Garvey Park. This unusual structure sits high on a hill known to Dutch colonists as “Slangberg,” or Snake Hill, in Harlem’s East 120s.
Completed in 1857, the watchtower was only used for a couple of decades, replaced by telegraph alarms.
But the cool old bell still rang regularly until 1905; residents asked the city to strike it twice a day to let locals know the time.
More than a few city neighborhoods currently or used to start with “Hell.” Hell’s Kitchen is the most famous—and enduring. (C’mon, does anyone really call it Clinton?)
The nabe’s moniker but it may have first been used in the late 1800s to describe the revolting slums and ferocious gangs in the West 30s and 40s.
Hell Gate is the name of the once-dangerous tidal strait separating Astoria from Randall’s Island. It’s also a lovely bridge that connects these two land masses across the East River.
Was Hell Gate once the name of the neighborhood on the Manhattan side of the East River too? I’m not sure, but maybe—there’s a Hell Gate Station post office on East 110th Street.
And let’s not forget the fantastically named Hell’s Hundred Acres, a gritty term for pre-1970s Soho. The beautiful cast-iron buildings that today house million-dollar lofts were used for decades as warehouses and manufacturing sites.
Safety codes weren’t followed and the buildings allowed to deteriorate, so they often went up in flames—hence the nickname. This photo documents a 1958 fire in a Wooster Street factory that killed six firefighters. Hell’s Hundred Acres indeed.
Unpaved and demapped, little Sylvan Court is a half-block blind alley off 121st Street between Lexington and Third Avenues. It’s an extension of equally obscure Sylvan Place, which runs from 120th to 121st.
The two-story houses on Sylvan Court were probably used as stables in the late 1800s, when Harlem was more of a sleepy village than the expansive urban neighborhood it would become by the early 20th century.
The homes aren’t in the greatest shape; the alleys of the West Village and Brooklyn Heights feature similar carriage houses that have been lovingly restored, not left to the elements. But they sure are charming. Unlike other alleys and mews in the five boroughs, they don’t have landmark protection.
Sylvan Court shouldn’t be confused with Sylvan Terrace—a better-restored mews dozens of blocks northwest.
