Many of the posts on Ephemeral New York explore concrete things that used to exist in New York City.
But sometimes, a building or house disappears without a backstory or even an address. It simply leaves behind a faded outline of what once was, and we’re left to wonder.
What kind of little house was this, with two chimneys and a pointed roof, once on Bond Street off Broadway?
In the mid-19th century, Bond Street was super fancy and exclusive. It must have been a lovely home.
This one above, which once flanked a cast-iron beauty, looks like an old walkup, on 23rd Street near Sixth Avenue, once the premier shopping district of Gilded Age New York.
Is this a doll house that was once sandwiched between two handsome midrise buildings on Crosby Street? Maybe a carriage house.
It looks like two or three different ghost buildings outlined against a tenement on West Eighth Street near MacDougal Street. At first I thought those were chimneys . . . but they’re just bricked-in windows.
More faded outlines can be found here.
Tags: demolished buildings, faded buildings New York, houses knocked down, old building outlines New York, outlines of buildings, vanished buildings New York, What was there New York
Ephemeral New York 
January 30, 2014 at 4:20 pm |
palimpsests. I love these.
January 30, 2014 at 5:51 pm |
RE: “…a cast-iron beauty, looks like an old walkup, on 23rd Street near Sixth Avenue…” I have a vague picture in my mind of the original building on that site. It was destroyed in a five-alarm fire on a weekday afternoon in August or early September of 1965 and has remained a parking lot ever since. Several firemen were injured in the fire.
February 9, 2014 at 6:37 pm |
How were these created? Were the brick buildings put up smack next to the old ghost buildings, and then the elements caused the brick to discolor over the years? Would love to know how these ghost images actually occur.
June 12, 2014 at 4:33 am |
[…] Check out more phantom buildings and their remains here. […]