February 26, 2025 • 27 mins
In this episode, Kevin Walsh, the creator of Forgotten New York, shares his journey of preserving the history and infrastructure of New York City. He discusses the origins of his passion for documenting the city's past, the impact of his work on the community, and his reflections on the changes in New York over the years. Kevin also opens up about personal challenges, health concerns, and offers valuable advice for the younger generation on pursuing their dreams and finding fulfillment in life. The Karol Markowicz Show is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Wednesday & Friday.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Marcoin Show on iHeartRadio.
I had a column in the New York Post yesterday
on a topic you've heard me cover on here, a
lot friendship. The hook was a study published last week
in the UK's Nature Medicine Journal. It found, and none
of this is a surprise, people with stronger social interactions
(00:28):
live longer than those without living with a partner. For example,
is as good for physical health as regular exercise. That's
what researchers found, and having non related friends to confide
in also extend lifespan. We need each other. Nothing surprising.
We've been hearing for years now how bad loneliness is
(00:49):
for our health. A US Surgeon General's report from twenty
twenty three found it is just as dangerous as smoking,
associated with a greater risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, stroke, depression, anxiety,
and premature death. While upwards of sixty percent of Americans
feel lonely on a regular basis. So it's good for
(01:11):
us to have friends and maintain those friendships. So why
don't we do it? The answer is it's easier not to,
and I have a lot of data and the piece
and again You might have heard some of it on
the show before, about the collapse of friendships. How we
used to have six close friends and now many people
(01:31):
have zero. It's easier not to have friends, and that's unfortunate.
It's like eating vegetables. You have to do something, you
have to participate in some way, and it's hard. We
know we're supposed to do it, but you know, tired,
exhausted from the day, just not wanting to interact with anyone.
(01:51):
So what needs to happen Because a lot of people
do end up eating their vegetables and going to the
gym and doing all the things you're supposed to do
for better life living, maybe not all the time. So
why aren't we maintaining this other part of our lives
that is also good for us? Maybe friendship needs to
be part of that life hacking with the kids that
(02:12):
are all into you, wake up early, make your bed,
text a friend, to make plans. We have to see
it as part of taking care of ourselves and something
good that we do to make ourselves feel better in
the short term and the long term. I get that
it's hard. It's hard for me, and I plan to
put this in action as much as possible. If you
(02:33):
end up putting it in practice, drop me a line
and let me know. Thanks for listening. Coming up my
interview with Kevin Walsh. But first, after more than a
year of war, terror and pain in Israel, there is
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(02:54):
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Speaker 2 (04:03):
Welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My
guest today is Kevin Walsh. Kevin runs this amazing website
called Forgotten new York and he has two books, Forgotten
new York and Forgotten Queens. Hi, Kevin, So nice to
have you on.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
I know it, Carol, It's good to see you.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
So We've known each other a long time, mostly on
the Internet, and I've always loved the work that you do,
kind of preserving memories of the old New York. How
did you get into it?
Speaker 4 (04:30):
Well, Forgotten new York has many mothers and many fathers.
Back in nineteen sixty two, I know it makes me
sound very old, lap sixty seven. Now, I started Forgotten
York when I was forty, So it's twenty it's finishing up.
It's twenty fifth year in existence. Well, back in nineteen
sixty two, I noticed that all the lamp posts on
(04:50):
my block had been taken down and replaced with brand
new ones. Now, these were the old cast iron lampposts
that look ornate with a lot of iron scroll work
on them, and the city got rid of those gradually
in the fifties and sixties and put up modern streamline poles.
I was fascinated by this. I didn't understand why I was.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
I just was.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
And then they built the Arizona Bridge across the street
from me. They tore down all the houses on Fort
Hampleton Parkway across the street from me. I lived at
sixth Avenue and eighty third Street in bay Ridge, Brooklyn,
and they built the Go.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
On this expressway across the street, and they tore down
all the houses.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
They built this huge trench, and they put the Go
on this expressway in there, and they constructed the Arizona Bridge,
and I was fascinated by all this. I watched them
string the wires on the bridge. My grandmother and I
would take bus rides down the shore road and we
would sit in one of the benches and we would
watch them spinning the wires on the bridge. And my
(05:57):
father took a lot of pictures of the trench with
the dump tree and the steam shovels and the trench,
and some of that has shown up on Forgotten New
York the website. And I was on amongst the first
buses to cross the Arizona Bridge in nineteen sixty four.
It was in November of nineteen sixty four. A few
years later, in nineteen sixty eight, my father, mother and
(06:20):
I were on a trip, went on a long subway
ride to Jamaica, Queens.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
To buy a wall unit.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
My father was a big proponent of tape recording, and
back then you had these huge units with two discs
that had tape that went through these, you know, these
huge tape recording machines, and that was the only way
to record things back then. And he was in a
club and he knew people all over the world and
(06:50):
he exchanged tapes with them. Anyway, he wanted a big
wall unit to put the books and the tape recorders
and the cameras and all that.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
And then we went to.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
A part store called Girts on Jamaica Avenue in downtown Jamaica,
and I was just there yesterday. I was on that
street yesterday. And during the visit we went into the
bookstore in Gerts and I thought, well, I had my
parents buy for me. I was very little then. The
(07:22):
first map of Brooklyn I ever had it was a Hackstrom.
It was This was in September of nineteen sixty eight,
and I always had a fascination with street maps. I
like the colors, I liked the lettering, I liked all that.
And I used to buy these what they call them
street guides. There were tiny, little red books, and they
(07:43):
had all the streets of Brooklyn and all the streets
of New York City and them and where the street began,
where they ended, and all the addresses on the cross streets.
And I was just fascinated with this stuff, and you
know it just I held it in my in my
mind for many years, and I got into as a profession.
(08:05):
I got into the printed words. I've had just about
every job there is to have with print. I've been
a copywriter, a proofreader, a layout artist. I've designed layouts,
I've I've done an author, yes, But at first I
(08:28):
was a proofreader and copy editor mainly, and I worked
at all night type shops. So I've always been associated
with the printed word. And I combined all this, all
this congealed in my brain in nineteen ninety eight. This
was a couple of years after the World Wide Web,
as they called it, became widespread. And I was sitting
(08:53):
in my office one day in a building that's now
been knocked over, now been knockdown. I was working for
a couple we call publishers Publishers clearing House, which was
a direct mail yeah, with the big checks and all
that I was working. I worked for them for twelve
years and I had an office and I still the
key to the office, even though the building's been knocked down,
(09:16):
and I just sketched out in that office what I
wanted Forgotten York to be, what the categories were going
to be, what was going to link to what? And
then this was in nineteen ninety eight. I then went
with my camera all over New York City photographing hundreds
(09:37):
of items because I wanted to launch the site the
next year, and I wanted to get like twenty five
or thirty pages on the site before I even launched it,
because I wanted The most frustrating thing in the world
back then was for me to go to a website
that I might be interested in and I see all
these under construction notices on the pages. I wanted to
(09:59):
get a lot of on the page first.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Kids these days don't know about that. Websites used to
be under construction. Yeah, so you know, it seems like
kind of an esoteric thing to collect pictures of kind
of old New York and old signs.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
And that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
But you have quite a big following. Does that surprise
you or does that seem very obvious to you.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
I am very gratified for the following I have gotten.
In the early days Forgotten York, there was about five
minutes when there's a little bit of buzz around it.
I was published in the New York Times, in the
Daily News, I was written about in the New Yorker,
and I got in the New York Times. Arcle was
(10:45):
pretty good. I was above the fold, as they say
in the Times. Below the fold on the same page
were Crewman and Brooks, So I was, at least for
one day, I was up above those two guys. I
Forgotten York because back in the heyday I forgotten it
(11:08):
was like twenty oh five through twenty eleven or twenty twelve,
when I had like fifteen thousand views a day, modest
by a lot of by comparison to places like Athamister
and why One.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
But for daily news, you can't you can't compare yourself
to that. It's you know you have I think your
following is very, very dedicated to the same kind of
point of view as you, which is preserving something that
is no longer there.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
Yeah, but I also my interest in doing the site
and doing the book, and I was very happy to
do as a sidetrack, I didn't have to do the
usual dog and pony show of bringing the book around
to several publishers. I was contacted by a guy named
Matthew Benjamin at HarperCollins, and he asked me if I
(12:01):
wanted to do the book, and I thought about it
for three seconds and I said, yes, I will. But
my motive is in writing, is in writing a guide
to New York, or writing a book about New York
that doesn't talk about what the other guide books talk about.
(12:23):
They'll talk about the most obvious things to see and do,
and they'll talk about the restaurants and Broadway and entertainment,
and that all has a place in the world and
it's well covered. I wanted to talk about New York
City's infrastructure, which encompasses the lamp posts, the faded signs,
(12:46):
and the buildings, the mailboxes, the stop lights. I wanted
to do a deep dive into that and along the
way while researching all this. You know, you hit upon history,
you hit upon personalities, you hit upon a lot of
other things. So it's sort of service as a sort
of gateway to a New York city. A lot of
people don't know about her or are forgotten about to
(13:10):
use the word forgotten again.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Do you miss the old New York or do you
just think New York is always moving forward? And what
are you going to do?
Speaker 3 (13:19):
Well?
Speaker 4 (13:19):
I don't like when buildings I like are torn down
to make way for new buildings that are uglier. You know,
a lot of people think I'm this old fashioned guy
that doesn't like anything new I've been to.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
I don't think that of you. I think actually you're
you're very no. But I think you're very not bitter
about how New York changes. I think you're very realistic.
I think I'm more, probably more bitter about.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
Okay, well you left the city here to go to Flora.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (13:51):
No, I like some new architecture, especially the residential buildings
with the huge square windows that you get play a
light in the build The problem is, I don't know
if if you can buy a curtain that thing, you know,
I don't.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Know custom ons Kevin. Okay, so go ahead, so so
you understand that New York changes, and that's just how
it is, right.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Yeah, I talk about what.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
Offen when I see a new building, I talk about
what was what was there before. There's a website now
called there's a website for everything. There's a website now
called nineteen Forties and YC in which they take all
the tax photos that were taken love.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Oh yeah, I looked up everywhere I've lived. I really
enjoyed that website.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
You can see, Yeah, I enjoy that can.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
See what New York buildings look like in the nineteen forties.
Speaker 4 (14:45):
And what they do is they put links on a
map of New York. I used to go into the
we're going to get into the weeds for five seconds here.
I used to go into this New York City Municipal
archive site and they had all the pictures there. A
lot of the sites that have followed me, uh, you know,
(15:07):
And I'm not saying they were imitative of me. I wouldn't.
I would not say that. All I'll say is that
they came after me. But a lot of them, you know,
state plainly that their purpose, and they're raised in Detra,
is to promote New York city, right, That is not
(15:30):
what I do with Forgotten New York. I will I
will show things I don't like and talk about that. Yeah,
I'm not here to promote. I'm not here as a
civic uh you know, a civic booster or anything like that.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
I do Forgotten New York. Why do I do it? Parsonally?
Speaker 4 (15:47):
I was born here in New York and I lived
I've lived here for sixty seven years.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
And love that place.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
You do it shows I enjoy its architecture, I enjoy
its infrastructure. There are a lot of things I don't
like about it that we don't have to talk about today.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
But I can tell you very honestly.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
If I was born in Chicago, I was born in Cincinnati,
I was born in Minneapolis. You'd have forgotten Chicago, gotten Cincinnati,
forgotten Indianapolis. I would probably be doing this wherever I
was born and wherever I live. If I moved down
to Florida. Where are you in Florida by the way.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
South Florida, Miami area, Miami area, Yeah, I don't. I
don't say exactly. For you know, there's a lot of
crazy people.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
My friend Linda, who worked with me for many years
of published story house moved down to Stuart, which.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Is important start. Yeah, has a lot of nice historical
stuff in Stuart.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
One of these one of these days, I'll get down
to Florida. You know, I make enough to travel again.
So the problem is I don't have enough time now
that I'm busy all week.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
I think Forgotten Florida is the natural next step.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
We got started Forgotten Boston a while ago, but I
couldn't get up there often enough.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
And sort of what do you worry about?
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Well, I'm gonna sound very selfish here. My mostly what
I worry about are my money is my money and
my health. I went through a ten year period in
which I did not work steadily. Now I had several
very interesting part time and freelance jobs. I worked for
(17:36):
Tiffany and I worked for Pearson Publishing, and these were
all very fulfilling. And you know, despite the horror stories
that have come out about Tiffany, my my experience there
was nothing but positive. But I you know, when I
wasn't working during that time, I I I worry about
(17:57):
my money. You know, it was decreasing. Now that I'm
sixty seven, I worry more about the health problems in
our current crop up. In recent years.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
I've had.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
I've had siattica, I've had a hernia operation, and my
back aches. I went five miles yesterday I walked in Jamaica,
and by the end of the day my back was
killing me. And you know when it does that, I
worry about getting spasms. And we won't go into the
medicals here, but yeah, but those.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Are you know, those are very reasonable things to worry about.
I don't think that there's anything crazy about that.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
I think no, I might have to see a chiropractor
in order to get back to where I was because
I used to be able to do ten to fifteen
mile walks in one day. And I have friends that
I think nothing and they're my age. They think nothing
of twenty five to thirty miles per day, and I
wish I could get to that level.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
I really do.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Yeah, and you do the Forgotten new York tours or
do do you still do those?
Speaker 4 (18:56):
Well, here's the thing about Forgotten new York tours. You know,
usually I treasure my time by myself, but the most
rewarding experience I've had doing Forgotten new York and the
book and all that over the years has been the
response I get on the tours because the tours, I
(19:17):
get like thirty to forty people who are really into
what I did, and you know, it's it's so rewarding
to actually be with them and after the tour is over.
And we used to do in the early days, when
I was younger, we used to do five to seven
hour marathon tours, and you know, if I was to
return to them, I would really cut it down to
(19:40):
two hours or so.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
That's seven hours. Like I have a hard time imagining
signing up for anything for seven hours. I know they
have to really love it.
Speaker 4 (19:50):
I advertised them at like three hours, but you know,
sometimes you just get carried away. One day, we walk
all the way up Riverside Drive, all the way from
seven second Street to one hundred and twenty fifth Street,
and of course I'm stopping every two minutes to talk
about something, so that the whole thing took like five
and a half hours. But that's the most rewarding thing
(20:11):
about Forgotten York. And another rewarding thing about Forgotten York.
I won't name the couple, but a couple of people
who met during one of my Forgotten York events got married.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
So good, Yeah, it's great.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
You should definitely have more. I think we need more marriages.
Speaker 4 (20:29):
I stopped doing them in at the end of the
twenty nineteen season. We were gonna do him in twenty twenty,
but then COVID happened, and after that, my Hernia and Myciantica.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
And all that, and the.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
Organization I'm with, Greater Astoria Historical Society, is cautioned against
doing the tours at my older age because of insurance issues.
People fall down, they want to zup, you know, so
you know, I don't rule them out. I don't say never.
(21:05):
I do live events, though I do appear in person.
For my twenty fifth anniversary tour last year, I went
to Brooklyn, the Bronx, a couple of locations in Queens
Staten Island, well we haven't done Staten Island yet. We'll
do it, but I did a live presentation on PowerPoint.
(21:26):
Great and that way people can see me and talk
to me, and you know, that's a big part of
this whole thing. Sure, yeah, people want to community, they
want to get together with each other.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
We're going to take a quick break and be right
back on the Carol Marcowitch Show.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
What advice would you give your sixteen year old self.
Speaker 4 (21:49):
Well, and I'm gonna be a little negative about myself here.
One of my character flaws is that I didn't have
a dream when I was sixteen or a teenager. I
would say that the most important thing you need to
have when you're sixteen is you need to know, or
(22:11):
you need to have a good idea of what you
want to be, what you want to do with your life,
if you're going to have if you're going to make
a lot of money or be a big success. Now me,
all I wanted to do was be able to support myself,
and that was the only dream I had. But if
you aspire to more than that, you need to understand
(22:34):
what you want to do at a very early age,
and you need to find a mentor who will take
you through all this. Either it's at school, you'll find
a teacher you like or a mentor. You have to
talk about it with your parents. You have to discuss
it with them, and I never did all that. It
(22:55):
didn't occur to me. I never thought it was important,
and my parents, bless them, they didn't bring it up either,
and my mother died at an early age. I really
regret this because we never had a one on one
conversation as adults.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
She died when I was sixteen.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
And my father, you know, my father was from a
different country and he was much older than me. He
came from Newfoundland, Canada. Well it wasn't part of Canada
back then he was born. In fact, he left Newfoundland
rather than be Canadian. He wanted to be an American.
But they never discussed it with me, and I regret
(23:31):
that eternally. So basically, if you want to be a
big success in life, pascitrated on it from a very
early age, as early as fifteen or sixteen. You know, Carol,
there's a very famous picture of Bill Clinton in nineteen
sixty two when he met John F. Kennedy. And from
that time on, Bill Clinton knew he wanted to be
(23:55):
the president of the United States.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
And you know what happened he did.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Here's my just minor rebuttal to that. First of all,
when I was sixteen, I didn't know anything, and I
had told my parents I wanted to be a writer,
and they were you know, they were from the former
Soviet Union, and they said, don't be silly. Nobody does that,
So you know, that derailed me for a little while
from from the dream. But I just think, like, look,
(24:21):
obviously there's sixteen year olds who know what they want
to do, and Bill Clinton who said I'm going to
be president and then went on to be president. We
never hear about all the guys who said or girls
who said I'm going to be president and then didn't
become president. You know, so I would just say, go
go easier on yourself because you did have a dream,
you just got to it a little bit later. You
(24:43):
got to it at forty and that's fine. And the
thing about your parents talking to about it. I talk
about that on the show a lot, because I think
a lot of people don't verbalize to their kids things
that I think should be verbalized. You know, what your
dream is and how to pursue it should be among
the things we talked to our It's about very good.
You're like, fine, you've convinced me.
Speaker 4 (25:04):
Well, maybe there's pros and cons about it, you know,
I do you know, I read biographies for a living,
you know, I work for Marcus or Marquee.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
I never know how they pronounce it, Marky or Marcus.
Speaker 4 (25:18):
Who's who read a lot of biographies of people and
That's what I when I see a great deal of
they knew what they wanted from a very early age.
Now I see what they do and I most of it.
I say to myself, why on earth would you want
to do that?
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Right?
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Of course, yeah, right. A lot of the dreams don't
even make sense.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
It's yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
Well, I've loved this conversation. I love the work you do.
It Forgotten New York. It's just really wonderful. And I
advise everybody to go check it out, buy the books,
check out the website. Leave us here with your best
tip for my listeners on how they can improve their lives.
Speaker 4 (25:56):
Next time you're worried about something, Next time you're laying
in bed at night and you you don't know what's
going on, you're worried about something. Remember you were born
in the well in your case, Caroline, in your case,
you arrive in the United States of America, you know,
(26:18):
and all that comes, everything that comes with it. Enjoy
your opportunities and enjoy the things that interest you the most.
And that's what I've done. You know, I've never made
a lot of money doing what I do. I'm you know,
printing the print world doesn't pay a lot, doesn't you know? What?
Speaker 3 (26:36):
When when when?
Speaker 4 (26:38):
When the mistake is made, the copy editor and the
proof readers on the firing line. You know, I'm not
gonna I'm not gonna harp on that. But do what
you enjoy doing the most. And that's what I enjoy doing.
You know, I enjoyed the print world. I enjoy the
mail boxes and the lampposts in the street.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
If it makes you happy.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
To do, love it. He is Kevin Walsh. His website
has Forgotten New York. Check out his two books, Forgotten
new York and Forgotten Queens.
Speaker 4 (27:07):
Thanks so much, Kevin, Carol, it's been a pleasure, and
let's do this again, maybe my thirtieth anniversary years.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Thank you, thanks so much for joining us on the
Carol Marko which show. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Marcoin Show on iHeartRadio.
I had a column in the New York Post yesterday
on a topic you've heard me cover on here, a
lot friendship. The hook was a study published last week
in the UK's Nature Medicine Journal. It found, and none
of this is a surprise, people with stronger social interactions
(00:28):
live longer than those without living with a partner. For example,
is as good for physical health as regular exercise. That's
what researchers found, and having non related friends to confide
in also extend lifespan. We need each other. Nothing surprising.
We've been hearing for years now how bad loneliness is
(00:49):
for our health. A US Surgeon General's report from twenty
twenty three found it is just as dangerous as smoking,
associated with a greater risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, stroke, depression, anxiety,
and premature death. While upwards of sixty percent of Americans
feel lonely on a regular basis. So it's good for
(01:11):
us to have friends and maintain those friendships. So why
don't we do it? The answer is it's easier not to,
and I have a lot of data and the piece
and again You might have heard some of it on
the show before, about the collapse of friendships. How we
used to have six close friends and now many people
(01:31):
have zero. It's easier not to have friends, and that's unfortunate.
It's like eating vegetables. You have to do something, you
have to participate in some way, and it's hard. We
know we're supposed to do it, but you know, tired,
exhausted from the day, just not wanting to interact with anyone.
(01:51):
So what needs to happen Because a lot of people
do end up eating their vegetables and going to the
gym and doing all the things you're supposed to do
for better life living, maybe not all the time. So
why aren't we maintaining this other part of our lives
that is also good for us? Maybe friendship needs to
be part of that life hacking with the kids that
(02:12):
are all into you, wake up early, make your bed,
text a friend, to make plans. We have to see
it as part of taking care of ourselves and something
good that we do to make ourselves feel better in
the short term and the long term. I get that
it's hard. It's hard for me, and I plan to
put this in action as much as possible. If you
(02:33):
end up putting it in practice, drop me a line
and let me know. Thanks for listening. Coming up my
interview with Kevin Walsh. But first, after more than a
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and her people by visiting SUPPORTIFCJ dot org. That's one word,
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Speaker 2 (04:03):
Welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My
guest today is Kevin Walsh. Kevin runs this amazing website
called Forgotten new York and he has two books, Forgotten
new York and Forgotten Queens. Hi, Kevin, So nice to
have you on.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
I know it, Carol, It's good to see you.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
So We've known each other a long time, mostly on
the Internet, and I've always loved the work that you do,
kind of preserving memories of the old New York. How
did you get into it?
Speaker 4 (04:30):
Well, Forgotten new York has many mothers and many fathers.
Back in nineteen sixty two, I know it makes me
sound very old, lap sixty seven. Now, I started Forgotten
York when I was forty, So it's twenty it's finishing up.
It's twenty fifth year in existence. Well, back in nineteen
sixty two, I noticed that all the lamp posts on
(04:50):
my block had been taken down and replaced with brand
new ones. Now, these were the old cast iron lampposts
that look ornate with a lot of iron scroll work
on them, and the city got rid of those gradually
in the fifties and sixties and put up modern streamline poles.
I was fascinated by this. I didn't understand why I was.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
I just was.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
And then they built the Arizona Bridge across the street
from me. They tore down all the houses on Fort
Hampleton Parkway across the street from me. I lived at
sixth Avenue and eighty third Street in bay Ridge, Brooklyn,
and they built the Go.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
On this expressway across the street, and they tore down
all the houses.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
They built this huge trench, and they put the Go
on this expressway in there, and they constructed the Arizona Bridge,
and I was fascinated by all this. I watched them
string the wires on the bridge. My grandmother and I
would take bus rides down the shore road and we
would sit in one of the benches and we would
watch them spinning the wires on the bridge. And my
(05:57):
father took a lot of pictures of the trench with
the dump tree and the steam shovels and the trench,
and some of that has shown up on Forgotten New
York the website. And I was on amongst the first
buses to cross the Arizona Bridge in nineteen sixty four.
It was in November of nineteen sixty four. A few
years later, in nineteen sixty eight, my father, mother and
(06:20):
I were on a trip, went on a long subway
ride to Jamaica, Queens.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
To buy a wall unit.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
My father was a big proponent of tape recording, and
back then you had these huge units with two discs
that had tape that went through these, you know, these
huge tape recording machines, and that was the only way
to record things back then. And he was in a
club and he knew people all over the world and
(06:50):
he exchanged tapes with them. Anyway, he wanted a big
wall unit to put the books and the tape recorders
and the cameras and all that.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
And then we went to.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
A part store called Girts on Jamaica Avenue in downtown Jamaica,
and I was just there yesterday. I was on that
street yesterday. And during the visit we went into the
bookstore in Gerts and I thought, well, I had my
parents buy for me. I was very little then. The
(07:22):
first map of Brooklyn I ever had it was a Hackstrom.
It was This was in September of nineteen sixty eight,
and I always had a fascination with street maps. I
like the colors, I liked the lettering, I liked all that.
And I used to buy these what they call them
street guides. There were tiny, little red books, and they
(07:43):
had all the streets of Brooklyn and all the streets
of New York City and them and where the street began,
where they ended, and all the addresses on the cross streets.
And I was just fascinated with this stuff, and you
know it just I held it in my in my
mind for many years, and I got into as a profession.
(08:05):
I got into the printed words. I've had just about
every job there is to have with print. I've been
a copywriter, a proofreader, a layout artist. I've designed layouts,
I've I've done an author, yes, But at first I
(08:28):
was a proofreader and copy editor mainly, and I worked
at all night type shops. So I've always been associated
with the printed word. And I combined all this, all
this congealed in my brain in nineteen ninety eight. This
was a couple of years after the World Wide Web,
as they called it, became widespread. And I was sitting
(08:53):
in my office one day in a building that's now
been knocked over, now been knockdown. I was working for
a couple we call publishers Publishers clearing House, which was
a direct mail yeah, with the big checks and all
that I was working. I worked for them for twelve
years and I had an office and I still the
key to the office, even though the building's been knocked down,
(09:16):
and I just sketched out in that office what I
wanted Forgotten York to be, what the categories were going
to be, what was going to link to what? And
then this was in nineteen ninety eight. I then went
with my camera all over New York City photographing hundreds
(09:37):
of items because I wanted to launch the site the
next year, and I wanted to get like twenty five
or thirty pages on the site before I even launched it,
because I wanted The most frustrating thing in the world
back then was for me to go to a website
that I might be interested in and I see all
these under construction notices on the pages. I wanted to
(09:59):
get a lot of on the page first.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Kids these days don't know about that. Websites used to
be under construction. Yeah, so you know, it seems like
kind of an esoteric thing to collect pictures of kind
of old New York and old signs.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
And that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
But you have quite a big following. Does that surprise
you or does that seem very obvious to you.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
I am very gratified for the following I have gotten.
In the early days Forgotten York, there was about five
minutes when there's a little bit of buzz around it.
I was published in the New York Times, in the
Daily News, I was written about in the New Yorker,
and I got in the New York Times. Arcle was
(10:45):
pretty good. I was above the fold, as they say
in the Times. Below the fold on the same page
were Crewman and Brooks, So I was, at least for
one day, I was up above those two guys. I
Forgotten York because back in the heyday I forgotten it
(11:08):
was like twenty oh five through twenty eleven or twenty twelve,
when I had like fifteen thousand views a day, modest
by a lot of by comparison to places like Athamister
and why One.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
But for daily news, you can't you can't compare yourself
to that. It's you know you have I think your
following is very, very dedicated to the same kind of
point of view as you, which is preserving something that
is no longer there.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
Yeah, but I also my interest in doing the site
and doing the book, and I was very happy to
do as a sidetrack, I didn't have to do the
usual dog and pony show of bringing the book around
to several publishers. I was contacted by a guy named
Matthew Benjamin at HarperCollins, and he asked me if I
(12:01):
wanted to do the book, and I thought about it
for three seconds and I said, yes, I will. But
my motive is in writing, is in writing a guide
to New York, or writing a book about New York
that doesn't talk about what the other guide books talk about.
(12:23):
They'll talk about the most obvious things to see and do,
and they'll talk about the restaurants and Broadway and entertainment,
and that all has a place in the world and
it's well covered. I wanted to talk about New York
City's infrastructure, which encompasses the lamp posts, the faded signs,
(12:46):
and the buildings, the mailboxes, the stop lights. I wanted
to do a deep dive into that and along the
way while researching all this. You know, you hit upon history,
you hit upon personalities, you hit upon a lot of
other things. So it's sort of service as a sort
of gateway to a New York city. A lot of
people don't know about her or are forgotten about to
(13:10):
use the word forgotten again.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Do you miss the old New York or do you
just think New York is always moving forward? And what
are you going to do?
Speaker 3 (13:19):
Well?
Speaker 4 (13:19):
I don't like when buildings I like are torn down
to make way for new buildings that are uglier. You know,
a lot of people think I'm this old fashioned guy
that doesn't like anything new I've been to.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
I don't think that of you. I think actually you're
you're very no. But I think you're very not bitter
about how New York changes. I think you're very realistic.
I think I'm more, probably more bitter about.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
Okay, well you left the city here to go to Flora.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (13:51):
No, I like some new architecture, especially the residential buildings
with the huge square windows that you get play a
light in the build The problem is, I don't know
if if you can buy a curtain that thing, you know,
I don't.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Know custom ons Kevin. Okay, so go ahead, so so
you understand that New York changes, and that's just how
it is, right.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Yeah, I talk about what.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
Offen when I see a new building, I talk about
what was what was there before. There's a website now
called there's a website for everything. There's a website now
called nineteen Forties and YC in which they take all
the tax photos that were taken love.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Oh yeah, I looked up everywhere I've lived. I really
enjoyed that website.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
You can see, Yeah, I enjoy that can.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
See what New York buildings look like in the nineteen forties.
Speaker 4 (14:45):
And what they do is they put links on a
map of New York. I used to go into the
we're going to get into the weeds for five seconds here.
I used to go into this New York City Municipal
archive site and they had all the pictures there. A
lot of the sites that have followed me, uh, you know,
(15:07):
And I'm not saying they were imitative of me. I wouldn't.
I would not say that. All I'll say is that
they came after me. But a lot of them, you know,
state plainly that their purpose, and they're raised in Detra,
is to promote New York city, right, That is not
(15:30):
what I do with Forgotten New York. I will I
will show things I don't like and talk about that. Yeah,
I'm not here to promote. I'm not here as a
civic uh you know, a civic booster or anything like that.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
I do Forgotten New York. Why do I do it? Parsonally?
Speaker 4 (15:47):
I was born here in New York and I lived
I've lived here for sixty seven years.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
And love that place.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
You do it shows I enjoy its architecture, I enjoy
its infrastructure. There are a lot of things I don't
like about it that we don't have to talk about today.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
But I can tell you very honestly.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
If I was born in Chicago, I was born in Cincinnati,
I was born in Minneapolis. You'd have forgotten Chicago, gotten Cincinnati,
forgotten Indianapolis. I would probably be doing this wherever I
was born and wherever I live. If I moved down
to Florida. Where are you in Florida by the way.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
South Florida, Miami area, Miami area, Yeah, I don't. I
don't say exactly. For you know, there's a lot of
crazy people.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
My friend Linda, who worked with me for many years
of published story house moved down to Stuart, which.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Is important start. Yeah, has a lot of nice historical
stuff in Stuart.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
One of these one of these days, I'll get down
to Florida. You know, I make enough to travel again.
So the problem is I don't have enough time now
that I'm busy all week.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
I think Forgotten Florida is the natural next step.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
We got started Forgotten Boston a while ago, but I
couldn't get up there often enough.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
And sort of what do you worry about?
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Well, I'm gonna sound very selfish here. My mostly what
I worry about are my money is my money and
my health. I went through a ten year period in
which I did not work steadily. Now I had several
very interesting part time and freelance jobs. I worked for
(17:36):
Tiffany and I worked for Pearson Publishing, and these were
all very fulfilling. And you know, despite the horror stories
that have come out about Tiffany, my my experience there
was nothing but positive. But I you know, when I
wasn't working during that time, I I I worry about
(17:57):
my money. You know, it was decreasing. Now that I'm
sixty seven, I worry more about the health problems in
our current crop up. In recent years.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
I've had.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
I've had siattica, I've had a hernia operation, and my
back aches. I went five miles yesterday I walked in Jamaica,
and by the end of the day my back was
killing me. And you know when it does that, I
worry about getting spasms. And we won't go into the
medicals here, but yeah, but those.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Are you know, those are very reasonable things to worry about.
I don't think that there's anything crazy about that.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
I think no, I might have to see a chiropractor
in order to get back to where I was because
I used to be able to do ten to fifteen
mile walks in one day. And I have friends that
I think nothing and they're my age. They think nothing
of twenty five to thirty miles per day, and I
wish I could get to that level.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
I really do.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Yeah, and you do the Forgotten new York tours or
do do you still do those?
Speaker 4 (18:56):
Well, here's the thing about Forgotten new York tours. You know,
usually I treasure my time by myself, but the most
rewarding experience I've had doing Forgotten new York and the
book and all that over the years has been the
response I get on the tours because the tours, I
(19:17):
get like thirty to forty people who are really into
what I did, and you know, it's it's so rewarding
to actually be with them and after the tour is over.
And we used to do in the early days, when
I was younger, we used to do five to seven
hour marathon tours, and you know, if I was to
return to them, I would really cut it down to
(19:40):
two hours or so.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
That's seven hours. Like I have a hard time imagining
signing up for anything for seven hours. I know they
have to really love it.
Speaker 4 (19:50):
I advertised them at like three hours, but you know,
sometimes you just get carried away. One day, we walk
all the way up Riverside Drive, all the way from
seven second Street to one hundred and twenty fifth Street,
and of course I'm stopping every two minutes to talk
about something, so that the whole thing took like five
and a half hours. But that's the most rewarding thing
(20:11):
about Forgotten York. And another rewarding thing about Forgotten York.
I won't name the couple, but a couple of people
who met during one of my Forgotten York events got married.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
So good, Yeah, it's great.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
You should definitely have more. I think we need more marriages.
Speaker 4 (20:29):
I stopped doing them in at the end of the
twenty nineteen season. We were gonna do him in twenty twenty,
but then COVID happened, and after that, my Hernia and Myciantica.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
And all that, and the.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
Organization I'm with, Greater Astoria Historical Society, is cautioned against
doing the tours at my older age because of insurance issues.
People fall down, they want to zup, you know, so
you know, I don't rule them out. I don't say never.
(21:05):
I do live events, though I do appear in person.
For my twenty fifth anniversary tour last year, I went
to Brooklyn, the Bronx, a couple of locations in Queens
Staten Island, well we haven't done Staten Island yet. We'll
do it, but I did a live presentation on PowerPoint.
(21:26):
Great and that way people can see me and talk
to me, and you know, that's a big part of
this whole thing. Sure, yeah, people want to community, they
want to get together with each other.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
We're going to take a quick break and be right
back on the Carol Marcowitch Show.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
What advice would you give your sixteen year old self.
Speaker 4 (21:49):
Well, and I'm gonna be a little negative about myself here.
One of my character flaws is that I didn't have
a dream when I was sixteen or a teenager. I
would say that the most important thing you need to
have when you're sixteen is you need to know, or
(22:11):
you need to have a good idea of what you
want to be, what you want to do with your life,
if you're going to have if you're going to make
a lot of money or be a big success. Now me,
all I wanted to do was be able to support myself,
and that was the only dream I had. But if
you aspire to more than that, you need to understand
(22:34):
what you want to do at a very early age,
and you need to find a mentor who will take
you through all this. Either it's at school, you'll find
a teacher you like or a mentor. You have to
talk about it with your parents. You have to discuss
it with them, and I never did all that. It
(22:55):
didn't occur to me. I never thought it was important,
and my parents, bless them, they didn't bring it up either,
and my mother died at an early age. I really
regret this because we never had a one on one
conversation as adults.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
She died when I was sixteen.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
And my father, you know, my father was from a
different country and he was much older than me. He
came from Newfoundland, Canada. Well it wasn't part of Canada
back then he was born. In fact, he left Newfoundland
rather than be Canadian. He wanted to be an American.
But they never discussed it with me, and I regret
(23:31):
that eternally. So basically, if you want to be a
big success in life, pascitrated on it from a very
early age, as early as fifteen or sixteen. You know, Carol,
there's a very famous picture of Bill Clinton in nineteen
sixty two when he met John F. Kennedy. And from
that time on, Bill Clinton knew he wanted to be
(23:55):
the president of the United States.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
And you know what happened he did.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Here's my just minor rebuttal to that. First of all,
when I was sixteen, I didn't know anything, and I
had told my parents I wanted to be a writer,
and they were you know, they were from the former
Soviet Union, and they said, don't be silly. Nobody does that,
So you know, that derailed me for a little while
from from the dream. But I just think, like, look,
(24:21):
obviously there's sixteen year olds who know what they want
to do, and Bill Clinton who said I'm going to
be president and then went on to be president. We
never hear about all the guys who said or girls
who said I'm going to be president and then didn't
become president. You know, so I would just say, go
go easier on yourself because you did have a dream,
you just got to it a little bit later. You
(24:43):
got to it at forty and that's fine. And the
thing about your parents talking to about it. I talk
about that on the show a lot, because I think
a lot of people don't verbalize to their kids things
that I think should be verbalized. You know, what your
dream is and how to pursue it should be among
the things we talked to our It's about very good.
You're like, fine, you've convinced me.
Speaker 4 (25:04):
Well, maybe there's pros and cons about it, you know,
I do you know, I read biographies for a living,
you know, I work for Marcus or Marquee.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
I never know how they pronounce it, Marky or Marcus.
Speaker 4 (25:18):
Who's who read a lot of biographies of people and
That's what I when I see a great deal of
they knew what they wanted from a very early age.
Now I see what they do and I most of it.
I say to myself, why on earth would you want
to do that?
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Right?
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Of course, yeah, right. A lot of the dreams don't
even make sense.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
It's yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
Well, I've loved this conversation. I love the work you do.
It Forgotten New York. It's just really wonderful. And I
advise everybody to go check it out, buy the books,
check out the website. Leave us here with your best
tip for my listeners on how they can improve their lives.
Speaker 4 (25:56):
Next time you're worried about something, Next time you're laying
in bed at night and you you don't know what's
going on, you're worried about something. Remember you were born
in the well in your case, Caroline, in your case,
you arrive in the United States of America, you know,
(26:18):
and all that comes, everything that comes with it. Enjoy
your opportunities and enjoy the things that interest you the most.
And that's what I've done. You know, I've never made
a lot of money doing what I do. I'm you know,
printing the print world doesn't pay a lot, doesn't you know? What?
Speaker 3 (26:36):
When when when?
Speaker 4 (26:38):
When the mistake is made, the copy editor and the
proof readers on the firing line. You know, I'm not
gonna I'm not gonna harp on that. But do what
you enjoy doing the most. And that's what I enjoy doing.
You know, I enjoyed the print world. I enjoy the
mail boxes and the lampposts in the street.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
If it makes you happy.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
To do, love it. He is Kevin Walsh. His website
has Forgotten New York. Check out his two books, Forgotten
new York and Forgotten Queens.
Speaker 4 (27:07):
Thanks so much, Kevin, Carol, it's been a pleasure, and
let's do this again, maybe my thirtieth anniversary years.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Thank you, thanks so much for joining us on the
Carol Marko which show. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Karol Markowicz
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