A guide to holiday markets in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens. [Markets of New York]

A five-borough guide to holiday lights and shows [CBS]

Another guide, specifically geared toward Astoria. [We Heart Astoria]

Sunday: Bronx Messiah and Taste of the Bronx Food Show. [Bronx Mama]

Saturday and Sunday: Harlem for the Holidays. [Uptown Flavor]

Also Saturday and Sunday: Staten Island Society of Model Railroaders sponsors its annual holiday train show and toy giveaway. [SI Live]

Queens holiday lights photo by Alex Goodwind from the CBS post linked above.

A century-old faded ad for Bloomie’s, Lexington btwn 115th and 116th [What about the Plastic Animals]

Have you explored the South Bronx Cultural Corridor? [Bronx Arts]

Inauguración de LUIS MARQUEZ EN EL MUNDO DEL MAÑANA: LA IDENTIDAD MEXICANA Y LA FERIA MUDIAL DE 1939-40, Domingo 14 de noviembre, de 15:00 a 18:00, with a special offer for the Museum’s twitter followers. [Queens Museum]

Brooklyn Historical Society workshop: “Research Your House,” Saturday from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. [Brooklyn Heights Blog]

Great Kills Park Nature Walk on Sunday [Staten Island Museum]

Timely pre-walk reading and welcome news: After a year’s hiatus, the Staten Island blog Walking Is Transportation is back … with some thoughts about honoring solitude.

“Harlem Fall”: photo by Yojimbot at Harlem Hybrid.

“A wonderful castle” on Staten Island, “built by beer and with German whimsy.” SPOILER ALERT: It later became a convent and burned down, as castle-convents built by beer are wont to do. [Ape Shall Not Kill Ape]

If you missed this week’s Poe in the Bronx screening, you can still catch an enhanced Poe exhibit at Museum of Bronx History. (The anniversary of Poe’s death came and went this week.) [Bronx News Network]

With Poe in mind, check out these Halloween events in the Bronx, for those wanting to plan ahead. [Bronx Mama]

Coney Island Eulogy? [Found in Brooklyn]

Photos of Harlem’s Peace Fish Market, circa 1938 [Harlem Bespoke]

At the Noguchi Museum in LIC, Queens, this Sunday: a Geology of Sculpture tour. Geologist Sidney Horenstein discusses the physical make-up of sculpture. Sunday at 3 p.m. [We Heart Astoria]

Bushwick’s Masonic Temple is for sale. 18,000 square feet for a measly million. [Animal NY]

Visit Calvary Cemetery in Woodside with my favorite Queens blogger, Mitch Waxman [Newtown Pentacle]

Angel Franco’s riveting photos of the Bronx’s 46th precinct, 1979-84 [Lens Blog, via Bronx News Network]

Introducing Harlem’s first Pride weekend [Harlem Bespoke]

All about Snug Harbor w/ our new favorite Staten Island blog [Ape Shall Not Kill Ape]

Calvary Cemetery photo by Mitch Waxman.

Horn & Hardart's Flagship Automat, Broadway and 46th Street, 1912

Author David Freeland visited our Faculty Resource Seminar today and offered us a glimpse of the city as it appears to him: as a palimpsest with layers of meaning waiting to be rediscovered if one knows where to look and what to look for. He took us through sites that animate his book Automats, Taxi Dances, and Vaudeville: Excavating Manhattan’s Lost Places of Leisure: the Atlantic Garden on the Bowery, once the city’s most popular German beer garden; the American Mutoscope Studio, once located atop the Roosevelt Building on Union Square; Tin Pan Alley; and Horn & Hardart’s flagship automat on Times Square. As David puts it in his book, one reason he has chosen to “spotlight buildings of entertainment and leisure (as opposed to those devoted strictly to government or business) is because these are the places that most often disappear after their economic usefulness runs out, casualties of an American popular culture that is always moving to the next trend.” What interests David mosts are culturally significant sites that little chance of being landmarked.

One question that arose for which none of us had a ready answer was related to the discussion of “Tin Pan Alley” on the south side of 28th Street between Broadway and Sixth Avenue. Asked the origin of the nickname, David recounted the anecdote that he tells on page 87 of his book, in which journalist and songwriter Monroe Rosenfeld asked his friend, music writer and publisher Harry Von Tilzer, something like: “What is that you’ve been playing on? It sounds like a tin pan.” David noted that the name probably stuck because it was a pun on an extant street, “Tin Pot Alley,” now Exchange Street just south of Rector Street. But to what, we wondered, did “Tin Pot Alley” refer?

Oldstreets.com has an answer for us: “Tin Pot Alley. (L18?-M19) An anglicization of the Dutch name Tuyn Paat, meaning Garden Alley. It is now Exchange Alley and Edgar Street.”

In the afternoon, David led us on a walking tour of Harlem, showing us the site of the old Baby Grand club, which existed from 1947 to 1989 and is now a Radio Shack. Recently, due to the wearing down of the sidewalk in front of the store, portions of an old sign for the club have become visible.

Other stops on our walk included the facade of the old Pabst Beer Garden on 124th Street; the Hotel Theresa; the site of the old Alhambra Theater, built in 1903; the Astor Row Houses on 130th Street, which David describes as a “preservation success story,” close to but seemingly far from the bustle of 125h Street; the house where Langston Hughes spent his later years; and finally the Lenox Lounge, a historic Harlem jazz club. (Because the best walking tours end up at a watering hole.)

We’re grateful to David for spending the day with us and look forward to collaborating with him on future projects.

Visit Salvatore of Soho … on Staten Island. [We Heart New York]

Gardening in Harlem with BroSis [Uptown Flavor]

Celebrating Frederick Douglass in Brooklyn, 1895; check out earlier entries on Kerouac in Brooklyn, too! [Who Walk in Brooklyn]

Canadians longing for LIC [Globe & Mail]

Starting Sunday the 6th, swing into summer w/ Latin Jazz and Salsa at Bronx Cemetery [Bronx Latino]

5Pointz photo via Globe and Mail.

What else is going on in the Greater New York blogosphere?

Some are asking: Could the closed-off Harlem River High Bridge be uptown’s future High Line Park? [Harlem Bespoke]

Did Cinco de Mayo leave you wanting more Mexican food? Here’s a rundown on some options in Queens. [The Foodista]

Tickets are now on sale for Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival (July 5-10). [Brooklyn Bodega]

Coming even sooner … Bronx Week (May 12-23). [Norwood News]

Richmond Terrace, Staten Island, then and now. [Ape Shall Not Kill Ape]

Photo of Harlem River High Bridge from Harlem Bespoke.

Kevin Walsh visits Poe Place in the Bronx. [Forgotten NY]

Titanic House leaves LIC. [liQcity]

The repopulation of Downtown Brooklyn [Brownstoner]

Tomorrow: Second Saturday in Staten Island. [Forgotten Borough]

Bald Eagles in Harlem! [Harlem Hybrid]

I missed this first one when it was new, but here’s a tour of prisons in all 5 boroughs. Follow it up with a tour of public restrooms. I’d like to dedicate the first link to Bartleby the Scrivener and the second to anyone who’s ever been cited for public urination. [Untapped New York]

Williamsburg public phone photo by Michelle Young for Untapped New York.

The Jane Jacobs of Gowanus [Found in Brooklyn]

The passing of a Harlem-born Tuskegee Airman [Harlem Bespoke]

Feeling hopeful at Staten Island’s Snug Harbor Cultural Center [snug-harbor.org]

Following Idiotarod 2010 from BK to Queens [Gothamist]

Coming-of-age clichés: Bronx edition [NYTimes]

Photo credit: An ephemeral scene on the Wmsburg Bridge, via Restless

East River Plaza’s Costco lays off 160 workers; apparently NYers don’t have room to buy in bulk [Harlem Bespoke]

Benefit TONIGHT for Tuli Kupferberg at St. Ann’s, featuring Flutterbox,  John Zorn, Lenny Pickett, Christine Ohlman, Sonic Youth, Lou Reed, John Kruth, Peter Stampfel and Tuli’s fellow Fug, Ed Sanders [Now I've Heard Everything]

Breaking down NYC pizza by borough/neighborhood: The Astoria Slice, pictured above [Newtown Pentacle]

Bronx-based William S. Burroughs look-a-like robbing shops in the Village [New York Times, via BoogieDowner]

A guide to Staten Island’s Hills: Look to them! [Ape Shall Not Kill Ape]

Astoria Slice photo by Mitch Waxman