Ravenswood

We snapped these photos from the 7 train of the art storage facility under construction at 41-54 22nd Street, right near the base of the Queensboro Bridge. The fine-art storage company Uovo is building a 270,000-square-foot building with temperature and humidity controls, with its ground floor more than 16 feet above sea level to avoid…

This week, a few workers were on site at 42-10 Vernon Boulevard, the 1892 building that served as the office for New York Architectural Terra-Cotta Works and is now an abandoned landmark. The DOB issued permits for general remedial repairs earlier this year, although the historically decrepit building needs more TLC than that. A few…

Though Roosevelt Island is technically a part of Manhattan, between 1958 and 1976 the only way to get there was by a bridge at 36th Avenue and Vernon Boulevard in Astoria, Queens. (Before 1958 a trolley would let you off on the Queensboro Bridge, where an elevator would transport you to the island.)

Here in Ravenswood, just south of Astoria along the East River, the skyline is dominated by the massive Con Ed “Big Allis” power plant and Ravenswood Houses, but a walk though its narrow streets reveals surprising remnants of old-time Queens. A Steinway competitor, Sohmer Piano, constructed this factory on Vernon Boulevard and 31st Avenue in 1887,…