Comments (0) Best way to explore New York without putting on pants - 2006
Forgotten-ny.com
Since the day in 1999 when proprietor Kevin Walsh typed up his very first report on a former trolley barn in Woodside, the irreplaceable forgotten-ny.com has been accumulating the Web's most fascinating collection of New York City historical detritus and neighborhood lore. Unlike most city historians, Walsh largely disdains the well-worked turf of Manhattan for the five boroughs' less explored corners: Included are tours of such neighborhoods as the Bronx's Spuyten Duyvil (see the rusty stairs leading to now vanished Irwin Avenue!), tiny Queens enclaves Pomonok and Ramblersville (visit the highest numbered avenue in Queens!), and such Staten Island neighborhoods as Travis and Westerleigh, whose pedestrian modern names bely their origins as, respectively, Linoleumville (as the home of the American Linoleum Company) and Prohibition Park (founded in 1887 by a temperance group). Walsh has an excellent Forgotten New York guidebook coming out from HarperCollins in October, but only on the website do you get treats like the street necrology, charting thoroughfares that have been wiped off the city map by the tide of progress, or the dozens of pages detailing the webmaster's lifelong obsession with streetlamps. ("In very rare cases, the octa-pole double-mast configuration can be oddly used.") For those who insist on seeing the city with their own two eyes, Walsh offers occasional $5 Forgotten Tours of favored nabes.
