If only I had had an extra $100,000 25 years ago. (OK—an extra $100,000, today would be good too.) But that’s what I kept thinking as I sat chatting with Oliver Allen, a retired journalist and author who is now a regular contributor to h…
The heart of New York City is Times Square. Named for the good times you have when you are…in it,” says Michael Scott in the NBC comedy, The Office. He then heads into Sbarro for a ‘real’ New York slice. Although Times Square is act…
With so much going on, so much frenetic energy, life in New York City takes the utmost focus. The senses are overwhelmed with stimuli—people, dogs in sweaters, neon advertisements, new construction, bleating traffic—and amidst all that, …
Emma Lazarus perhaps said it best in her immortal poem in which she spoke about the wave of immigrants that were welcomed to American’s golden shores. Generation upon generation of newcomers have chosen to settle in New York City and its…
The Big Apple. Paris has just as much romantic cachet. Rome is every bit as frenetic. London has excellent theater, too, and there are also esteemed financial institutions in Zurich and Hong Kong and Frankfurt. Tokyo and Mumbai and Jakar…
Affordable apartments with fresh air, good light, and attractively landscaped grounds for middle-income people—those were the goods Park West Village was created to deliver in the late 1950s and early 1960s as part of a government-s…
Back in 1900, a little village sprouted up on Long Island called "Comac" along the Huntington/Smithtown town line. Located in the little hollow created by the gently rolling hills that surrounded the intersection of Jericho Turnpike and the…
In 1939, when the WPA Guide to New York Citywas first published, South Queens, and particularly the area around what would become Rochdale Village, had little to recommend the visitor. "Springfield, Laurelton and Rosedale, at the so…
Rego Park, Queens is a neighborhood that has seen many changes over the years. Once considered the suburbs, it is now a bustling community home to many families, a diverse population of immigrants from all over the world and a large numb…
Over the past 15 years, freelance photographer Simon Russell and his wife, Ann Delilkan, worked hard to make a home out of their small basement-level apartment on MacDougal Street. When "Men in Black" filmed in their neighborhood, R…