Dig this photo gallery of the old Third Avenue El.

Hello again! What, are you up for another adventure with Where & When? If not, come back in a few minutes for the answer, because our regulars would actually give Joseph Tacopina an ounce of shame (it is possible).  Today’s gambit is sponsored by my nephew Isaiah, who slept over last night as I wrote this post. He may or may not appear in future posts as I bring more areas to bear for your scrutiny (in the present, of course).  Meanwhile:

click on pic to enlarge

Ah, another break from the classics; and I bet this one has Fearless Leader very interested.  But I’m not going to make this one too easy. You can probably tell where this is, especially if you were around town in this era, but how many of you know about any of the other features in this picture? There’s quite a bit of interesting history contained here, so I’m looking for at least three features in this pic that have either a back story or something interesting going on today. The bonus question is what you know of regarding one of the features here that’s also become an institution in it’s own right.  You have thirty seconds, no, you have all morning and afternoon to figure it out and post your answer in the comments. I am curious to see how long it takes to find the Easter eggs in this one.

Again, full credit and a full mug of contraband to the first one who finds the proper names and history or current aspect of significant features in this picture (hint: there are three that I’m most concerned with).  The rest of us get a bowl of chicken noodle soup.  The bonus will get you a shot of contraband in your chicken noodle soup >;)

So, I’ll try to be back in the evening to sort out the mess here.  Good luck, and if you have any personal stories about this area, please feel free to share! And don’t peek at the photo credit or you’re fired (that’s nephew’s two cents).  Enjoy!

[Photo credit: wavz13] 

Nope, you’re eyes do not deceive you, we are back with yet another Where & When.  It’s been a rather tight few weeks for me, but here I am popping in for a minute with another challenge for you to tackle.  I’ve been sifting through a number of sources for interesting photos that are also large enough to post; that’s been an issue for me because there are quite a few pictures I would like to use, but they are just too darn small.  I’ll finagle with Adobe Illustrator when I have time so that I can resize the small ones without pixelation, but in the meantime let your eyes fly over this fancy:

The city seems to have a a long love affair with fire escapes, and this was certainly no exception.  I feel this one’s distinctive enough to come up with the answer fairly quick, so your job is to find out the address of this building and the date the year the pic was taken (that will be surprisingly easy as well), and also tell us if you can how long the building has or had existed (year built, how old it is now or when it was shut down/demolished) .  Bonus points if you know anything about the photographer(!)

As usual, show us how you came to your answers. Your favorite brand of hot cocoa in a giant mug if you are the first with the answers, a nice cup of tea for us stragglers and a cookie for the bonus.  I will be in and out through the day, but I’ll be studying so please forgive me for not getting back right away.  No peeking at the photo credit and feel free to answer and discuss in the comments.  Have fun folks, see you later in the day!

[Photo credit: Read Media]

Scouting New York tackles The Godfather. Tasty.

(Thanks to Kottke for the link.)

Welcome one and all; we’re back with another round of Where & When.  Still looking for interesting pics and anecdotes to go along with them, searching for little twists to challenge you with. All in a few minutes of feverish work or days of planning? Doesn’t matter, we have fun.

Take this pic for example:

Easy, right? You’ve seen that building before, and you can still see it if you like.  But you know me by now, it’s not that simple.  I want to know if you can tell me where the photographer was standing when this picture was taken.  There are obvious clues and not-so obvious to help you figure that out, so you won’t need any clues from me.  When it was taken shouldn’t be too hard to figure out either, though I will accept an approximation in lieu of an exact date.  As a bonus, name two prominent buildings in the picture.

Your favorite root beer in a decanter if you are the first with the answers, your favorite cream soda in a spritzer bottle for all follow-ups and a scoop of ice cream for the bonus.  Be fair, don’t look at the photo credit for the answer and show your math (which means something this time around).  I’ll be back in the afternoon (hopefully) with the answers.  Hmm, and full credit will be given only for complete answers and proof of your strategy; that means you won’t get credit for only answering one question per comment, but feel free to utilize the comments to map your strategy before presenting.  Have fun!

[Photo credit: NYC Past]

Happy New Year! Welcome to a new year and new round of Where & When; time to get off on the right foot and move forward.  Let’s see how many more people we can get into our little games here and see how far we can expand our borders; for the coming year we will be traveling around the tri-state area to various points of interest and try to determine where the heck we ended up.  Of course New York City remains the center of attention, but as I’ve said, the challenging pics are hard to come by.  But enough complaints and speculation, check out this interesting point:

Gotta love Olde Bvildings.  Okay, enough horsing around, let’s try to find out where this is.  As far as when, if you study the pic, you’ll notice something (open to the public one year prior) that gives you the proper year.  As a bonus, consider the statue in the picture and tell us who it depicts.

Rewards: The first person with the correct answers gets a fictional snifter of the root beer of his or her choice (New Year’s Special), and the runners-up will get a martini-glass of the ream soda of their choice; you all should you declare your brand of choice.  The bonus will get you an extra cream soda, and you are also welcome to submit additional trivia for a bonus.

Well, have it.  Stay away from the photo credits, I’ll try to get back to you all in the afternoon.  And, as always, new challenge ideas are always welcome, just send me an email with a pic and date and we’ll queue it up.  Enjoy!

[Photo credit: Ephemeral New York and Old NYC Photos]

Swiping more wonderfulness from Kottke, dig Greg Alessandrini’s NYC photographs…

A dozen years of closing. 

[Photo Credit: Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times]

Hello? Oh, welcome back to Where & When! It’s been a heck of a year for me, how about you? I’m guessing this will be the last game of 2013, and we’ve had quite a run here.  I’m looking forward to the new year; more challenges and more wins in all walks of life. Let us look at the last challenge of the year:

Nothing too obvious like Times Square (although that would be kinda cool if we hadn’t already done it), but does require a bit of observation.  I won’t give any clues for this one because they are obvious in my opinion.  A Waialua Root Beer for the first with location and (closest) date, and a Waialua Cream for the follow-ups (keeping it in the family for the last part of the year). So, have at it, no peeking and I’ll see you on the flip side!

[Photo Credit: Michael Krieger]

Hi folks, and welcome back to another rousing version of Where & When.  The year is coming to a close soon, which means I have some calculating to do; in the meantime I must warn you that the games may be slowing down soon for the holidays and for the fact that I need to find more places to cull challenges from; harder to find challenging pictures than you would think.  I also did promise some expansion of territory and insight on certain places; don’t think I forgot about that, but it does require time to do and this might be the best time to do such a thing.

With that in mind, let us glance thusly at this edifice:

Imposing. Scary looking, in fact. Maybe not so much now; this is not the original version of the edifice, nor is it the current version (some modifications in the 60’s were made to conform to the contemporary standard policies on appearances), but interesting for two reasons: it is the first of its kind in this particular borough, and it’s located a half a block away from my first residence in the city; in fact my little strip of a street was an anomaly of sorts in that it had no true origin; at the least it was probably wiped out by urban planning and development in some years prior.

So there is a name and address for this building since it still exists, however since this pic is undated, I will ask that you give dates to when the original structure was actually built as well as the year of this redux and subsequent renovations.  I would offer a bonus, but it would be a dead giveaway, so I’ll just tell you that there is a bit of trivia connected to this place that might interest certain people; I in fact have at least one thing in common with the subject of this info.  That, or name the other street I referred to in my description above. Have I got some stories about that…

So, that’s rather vague, but this one is not really hard.  A tanker of Duffy’s Rowdy for the first with the answers, and a Foxon Park for the peanut gallery. Enjoy the game, I’ll get back to you soon and don’t click on that photo credit!

[Photo credit: Patheos.com]

Whew, welcome back to another round of Where & When.  I’ve been busy managing some issues the past few days, so I knew Monday’s game would be pushed back, but I can’t really announce something like that unless I had an official schedule; Monday and Thursday are the usual days this day is played, but it’s not something set in stone. At any rate, there’s been a lot of off-season stuff to talk about, so an off-schedule challenge is not something to froth at the mouth about (if things were slow, yeah I’d be a bit uptight).

At any rate, here is today’s challenge:

Click on pic for larger view

This one gave me a headache, because the source who posted it did not know the location; the clues are not so evident unless you have access to stronger records than I do (likely), so we may be doing a favor for these folks when we figure out the where; or should I say YOU figure it out.  I know where it is now, and it’s not gonna be easy to figure out if you do what I did.  Get your preferred headache medication ready, this is not as simple as it looks (of course I can expect at least two of you to figure it out right away).  I must admit, I wanted to use this picture in earlier games, but I was stumped until now where this possibly could be; I’ll reveal my path of discovery after the game.

Since there is no absolute reference that I can find for the pic, I will accept an approximation of the date, but I insist on having an address of one of the buildings here.  A bonus will be awarded to those who can tell us each business that exists today in place of the businesses in the picture. The first player to get the correct answers will receive a grail of Barqs (you can’t get much better than that in my opinion) and the rest will have to fight over A&W or Crush (yes, Crush makes cream soda), both of which happen to be pink…

Do your best and have fun; don’t forget to show your math.  I’ll try to get back to you in 6the evening because I know I’ll be busy, but like I tell my nephew when I buy him lunch at 5 Guys, try to savor this one instead of inhaling it >;)

[Photo Credit: New York Shitty]

P.S.: When I read the comments section of the source, I found out someone had already hunted down the addresses the same way I did. D’oh!

Hey! We’re back with another Where & When.  As the Winter Meetings wind down and the continents settle into their new places, we return our attention to the past, where beauty and functionality met at the corner and swapped stories about life in the big city.  Maybe play some ball in an obsure lot or grab a bite to eat at the hangout spot.  Nah, it’s too cold for that right now, but we can still shiver the timbers as we contemplate these boys of summer:

Maybe I’m wrong, but I’ve been pretty easy with my hints lately, so I’m gonna challenge you to determine this one on your own.  There are certain clues within the picture that will tell you who or what you’re looking at, so eventually you’ll determine where you probably are (don’t worry, it’s not out of our usual bounds).  As for the year, well, I can tell you that our country finally brought some big chips to the party and eventually everything went out with a big bang. (okay, I can’t help but give you clues, huh…) The first person to figure that all out will get a kick from Capt’n Eli, while the rest of us will take a spin with some 365.

As usual, post your answers on the thread below and do not peek at the photo credit (I forgot to post that last game).  Best of luck and sorry for the delay, though it was probably a good thing seeing how the conversation went yesterday.  I’ll try to catch you all in the afternoon; post questions if you have them as well.  Peace!

[Photo Credit: NYC Past]

Hello again, welcome back to the Monday edition of Where & When.  The hot stove is burning up everything in sight, which is a good thing because it’s getting harder to find challenges (as I always say); but I think I have a pretty good one for you this time.  I’ve been telling a few people I know about the game and how the regulars keep coming up with the answers in good time, so keep up the good work and before you know it, we might be the next coming of Hollywood Squares (if we aren’t already, who knows? >;)

So let’s take a look yonder and take a good look at this photo:

I’m almost afraid to say anything about this photo so I don’t give anything away.  But to be fair, I will give you a decent clue: that cowboy is actually working, and his work is rather important.  Doing what you ask? Hmm… so the Naked Cowboy was not the first one to have a regular job up here, go figure.

So, get the location and the year correct and you get the prize: a cold chalice of  J.C. Gray, and the rest of us can sip on a tumbler of Barrel Brothers.  You should know how this works by now; leave your answer and your process of finding the answer in the comments section, and for kicks you can share some trivia with the rest of us. For a bonus, you can figure out the nickname the thorough-way in the photo had at the time and why.  If the game should be overshadowed by more baseball news, not to worry; it’s good to have activity in the Banter and we’ll be here for a while.  Have fun and I’ll try to get back to you in the late afternoon or evening.  >;)

Hey, how about this? A bonus round of Where & When! I guess this week was a little too easy for our seasoned vets, so I had to go a little deeper, a little further, quite a ways to get this one. Being that this is special, and in keeping with the fact that this is the third game of the week, I’m presenting a three-part challenge; also this will serve as a tribute to one of our regulars who may or may not recognize at least one of the featured buildings outright.  If you recall any reason why I would do that this week of all weeks, you get a bonus!

Part 1:

This picture was taken in the same year that a future President of the United States began a historic reformation of the New York City Police Department. In it, a secondary learning institution began its existence on the second floor of the building on the left.  Name this building and the approximate address.

Part 2:

This is said to be the earliest photo of the new building for the previously mentioned secondary learning institution, built one year after the region it was built in officially became part of Greater New York; two boroughs east of the seat of power.  What was this building the original site of and what year was it built?

Part 3

This is the present day site of the institution, which was built the same year there was a major shift in the country’s fortunes that would later cause mass upheaval for many. What is the name of this building/institution and when was it built?

So, if you know any of this, you would also know where within all of this movement took place, and you may or may not know that one of our own is originally from this region.  It’s not an easy place to get to; in fact it’s not near.  Quite the opposite, in fact. Therein lies the subtle tribute; which our target may or may not reveal the reason (if it’s seen).  What a mystery.  I’m sorry if the clues are rather vague, but gifts are often best left to the imagination.  And maybe in the future, other regulars may be served with similar plotting >;)  A bottle of Triple XXX for the first person to emerge from this maze with the right answers, and Capone Family Secret for the rest who endure.  Good luck with it and I hope this turns out the way I pictured it.  If not, well I see ya Monday then >;)

Greetings, and welcome to another episode of Where & When, the game that makes you think, “Hmm, that must have been nice back in the day” or something similar to that.  Well, the Hot Stove is burning bright this winter and we haven’t even gotten to the Winter Meetings yet.  Nothing much else going on in New York except us; we’re the next hottest game in town, folks! At least we like to think it is, and our hungry regulars like to keep us relevant during a down year for New York in general.  So while we sweat by the wood burner and wonder WWJZD and how sternly Boras is frowning on the way to the bank, let us ponder the graceful ornaments of these interesting structures:

This pic was taken about 20 years before the houses were taken down and twenty years before a very iconic Chevy rolled off the assembly lines of GM plants.  There were similar, but less-ornamental structures around the block that were both either owned or named after one of the old New York land-owning families of old.  It is said that quite a few famous artists and authors lived rather bohemian lifestyles here during its existence.  Today, you would never notice the remnants of these buildings unless you were close enough to have lunch (or take part in a flea market perhaps), but some things in the picture still survive.  You can use all of these clues to find the correct answer, plus if you’re feeling empirical you can tell us a little about the designer of the houses and a couple of other designs he had done in his day that also remain to this day.
A (dare I say) rare mix of our favorite stuff for the first person to post the correct answers below, and an Old Philly for the rest of us (though I’m not entirely sure I’m being fair this time around)… feel free to post your thoughts, invite your family and friends and tease each other over this one; it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out.  You can also discuss other elements in this picture for a bonus.  I’ll check back in the afternoon as usual and throughout the morning if need be.  Enjoy the game!

[Photo Credit: Berenice Abbot and Ephemeral New York]

Hey all, welcome back to another edition of Where & When.  I have a pretty easy one for you this time, one with a view you’ve possibly seen before.  Imagining the scale of this edifice is to imagine a vast repository of natural effects; or at least the end game for the run-off…

This reminds me of one of my favorite towns that I lived in when I was growing up.  I’m making a gallery of pictures I took on a trip up there this summer, in fact; anyone whose interested should just click on my screen name for updates.  In the meantime, why don’t you dive into this challenge and seek out the name of this structure, the year it was built and when it was taken down (for whatever stands in it’s place today).  Knowing that much will give you a good idea of the actual size of this structure.  Bonus if you know of a similar structure that currently resides within city limits and can provide a link to a picture.

A truckload of Old Colony for the first person with the right answers and a Spring Grove for the rest of us who follow.  Leave your answers and recollections in the comments and we’ll talk again in the afternoon.  Happy Trails!

[Photo credit: syscosteve]

When art ruled SoHo.

[Photo Via: Forgotten New York]

Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York looks at the changes in the meat packing district.

Welcome back to another edition of Where & When.  The holidays are neigh and I will probably only post once this week so that we can all do our own thing on the day and recover afterwards, but if I do post another, I’m certain it won’t be Thursday.  I do apologize for the inconsistency of late, but my work schedule has been similarly inconsistent.  This week should provide me a bit of relief; especially with what I hear will be a major snowstorm coming to the NY Tri-State area as early as Wednesday.

That said, let us debate over this latest picture:

I had a little bit of trouble pinpointing the location, even with the given clues, so this may or may not take a while depending on your resources.  I am particularly curious about a couple of the clues in this photo, so anything you can add to the description in terms of the businesses pictured would certainly be worthy of a bonus.  As far as when is concerned, I’m certain we can gather what season it is, but for the year I’m looking for the same year as a particular exposition in this region involving horses and drinking. Did somebody say fun? I sure hope they capped it at a certain point if it was…

A raft of River City for the first with the answers to both where and when, and Napitki iz Chernogolovki for comrades who follow with correct answers. Leave your answers in the thread and discuss freely. Links are your friend, and so are well researched responses.  No peeking at the photo credit, of course.  And again, anyone who wishes to submit a future challenge can submit the picture and corresponding info to me via email.  Poka!

[Photo credit: Wikipedia Commons]

Welcome Back to Where & When.  This will be a special edition to highlight the recent loss of a cultural icon.  For several generations and cultures who inhabit the city, this was their Penn Station. I present this without further comment, but feel free to post thoughts.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013:

 Here is a Google Gallery of what was 5 Pointz. 

Here is a little history.