New York Songlines: 38th Street

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552: Head Quarters, topless lounge

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Corner (500 10th): REMCO, "metal cleaning and pickling"

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440: Houses Engine 34 and Ladder 21. Eighteen firefighters from this firehouse responded to the World Trade attacks; 12 lost their lives.

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Lincoln Tunnel

These on-ramps and off-ramps connect to the busiest vehicular tunnel in the world, handling 120,000 vehicles a day. Opened in 1937, it was the first major tunnel project to be completed without a single worker fatality.

419: Site of the West Side Industrial School

413-415: Was the Children's Aid Society's Schermerhorn Playground

South:

Corner (500 9th Ave): Esposito Pork Shop; dates back to 1940s.

344: The last home of Hot Lap Dance, an underground strip club busted for prostitution

330: The Lobby, a nightclub; formerly Chaeira

306:  Was Meat & Potatoes Theater Co./Alvina Krause Theatre. A 1928 building designed by William I. Hohauser.

304: Shampan Eighth Avenue Building, an L-shaped building that also fronts on 8th Avenue, designed by Shampan & Shampan and completed in 1927.

302: Los Poblanitas, cheap, authentic Mexican

300 (corner): This 1903 Art Nouveau building was designed by Emery Roth, architect of the San Remo (whose firm later designed the World Trade Center). It was at one point an actor's hotel; later the Word Center.

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270: Lebros Building; 20-story neo-classical building, completed 1925 (George & Edward Blum, arch.).

242: W.M.N. Ginsburg Braids

240: Was the Corduroy Club, a private club for gay men and women in the 1960s. The meeting place of the West Side Discussion Group, and the site of an important 1968 gay rights conference. Also houses Veronica Ristorante Italiano, longstanding lunch counter.

230: Bricken Arcade; 17-story building completed 1924. A short cut to 37th Street.

200-212 (corner): Millennium Towers North, aka the Navarre Building; A 43-story Art Deco building completed in 1930, designed by Sugarman & Berger, architects of the New Yorker Hotel. A 1983 flood here knocked out power to most of the Garment District for four days.

Previously at this corner was the Hotel Navarre, built c. 1900. "Navarre" is the Basque region in Spain.

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263: Malia Mills, sexy swimwear for women of every shape.

223: Midtown post office

221: Djerdan #3 features Bosnian bureks, "fantastic flaky phylo pies"--Siestsema, the Voice.

209: Ben's of Manhattan, Manhattan outpost of a Long Island kosher deli chain

203: Spanish Taverna, old-school restaurant. Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver hangs out in his cab in front of this place, stalking the candidate, until he is chased away by a police officer.

Corner (526 7th Ave): Health King juice bar used to be The Center, a diner.

South:

Corner (515 7th Ave): Site of Dubrow's, a cafeteria that doubled as a sort of employment agency.

146: Was a Horn & Hardart Automat. The sign still exists.

Corner (1385 Broadway): A branch of Crunch Fitness

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Corner (525 7th Ave): Fashion Center Building, a 1924 building by Henry Ives Cobb, houses Nicole Miller, Sean Jean and other clothing industry players.

Corner (1407 Broadway): This building houses (among other things) the kosher restaurant Abigael's on Broadway, Harrie's Delicatessen & Bakery, Peter's Flowers (since 1937) and Via Rossi shoes.

South:

Corner (1384 Broadway): Lefcourt Normandie Building, built by Garment District developer Abraham Lefcourt, on the site of the Hotel Normandie, where Tchaikovsky stayed in the spring of 1891 to inaugurate Carnegie Hall. Nick and Nora Charles also stayed here in the novel The Thin Man.

The Lefcourt Normandie National Bank of New York, founded in 1928, after a series of mergers and name changes became Chemical (now Chase) Bank.

Beads World, a Garment District supplier, can be found here now.

120: Site of the rathskeller Kennedy's, a late-night hangout for theater types in the Jazz Age.

110: Master forger Mabel Parker was arrested at her apartment here in 1903. "She's the most wonderful person with a pen I've ever seen," the arresting detective said. "She wrote my name for me so that I positively couldn't tell it from my own signature." She passed the time at her trial by copying signatures for reporters-- yet still was acquitted of forgery. Her husband, however, got 10 years at Sing Sing.

A few years later, in 1909, this was the address of Maxim's, a leading "lobster palace."

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Corner (1400 Broadway): On the site of the old Knickerbocker Theater (1893-1930) can be found the New Yankee Cafe and the Israel-based Leumi Bank (founded by Theodor Herzl).

111: Ida Mae Kitchen-n-Lounge, haute Southern, named for the owner's great-grandmother; also the address of Radius, a white circular lounge.

Corner (1020 6th Ave)(corner): Elle Beads

South:

Corner (1010 6th Ave): The Atlas, a 46-story residential tower built 2002.

42: This building housed the Victor Talking Machine Company, where the world's first jazz record was cut on February 26, 1917: "Livery Stable Blues," by the Original Dixieland Jass [sic] Band.

26: Manny's Millinery, hat mecca going back to the 1940s.

Corner: Site of the W&J Sloane store. (Their previous store is now ABC Carpets.) More recently Comp USA.

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69 (corner): Americana Inn, affordable hotel with shared baths and a great location.

27: Daughters of Bilitis, the country's first lesbian organization, had its New York office here.

Lord & Taylor

424-434 (corner): A New York fixture since 1825, the department store built this (once) elegant building in 1914-- breaking neighborhood tradition by looking like a store, not a mansion. When built, the window displays could be lowered on tracks to the basement, for instant replacement. Still noted for its Christmas displays.

South:

Corner (244 Madison): Was Reuben's Deli, which may (or may not) have invented the Reuben sandwich.

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Corner (445 5th Ave): Fifth Avenue Tower, 34 stories completed in 1985.

3: Now a vacant lot, there used to be a brownstone here that from 1919-29 housed the Code Compilation Company, better known as the Black Chamber, a secret government code-breaking operation. It was shut down by Secretary of State Henry Stimson, who famously declared that "gentlemen do not read each other's mail."

South:

22 (corner): Jolly Madison Towers Hotel was built as the Fraternities Club, with 16 meeting rooms for different Greek organizations.

Corner (66 Park): Kitano Hotel, Japanese-style luxury.

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Corner (251 Madison): Address was the birthplace of Clarence Day Jr. (Nov. 18, 1874), author of Life With Father, which became a long-running Broadway play, a movie with William Powell, and a 1950s TV show.

43: Silverleaf Tavern is part of the 70 Park hotel.

Corner (70 Park): 70 Park Avenue Hotel, formerly the Doral Park Hotel. The French celebrity stays here in The French Connection.

South:

Corner (59 Park): Roman Catholic Church of Our Saviour, neo-Romanesque building dating to 1959.

108: The Town House, colorfully cubist Art Moderne apartment building (Bowden & Russell, 1930).

116-120: The oldest houses on the block, these brownstones with a shared terrace were built in 1856. Architect Chester Holmes Aldrich (of Delano & Aldrich) lived at 116.

122: Earth Pledge, an environmental group that promotes demonstration projects of sustainable technologies. Abraham Lincoln's granddaughter, Mary Isham, once lived here.

124: This townhouse was designed by Ralph Townsend for William R.H. Martin, head of the Rogers Peet clothing store.

126: This converted stable was the offices of Delano & Aldrich, architects who designed the Marine Air Terminal at LaGuardia. Now the offices of Carlin America, music publishers.

128-136: These Italinate houses date to 1869. 130 was home to Ida Adams, a Zeigfield performer who starred in The Pink Lady in 1911. 134 has a Spanish-style front added in the 1920s. Architect David Jardine (designer of the B. Altman building on 6th Avenue) lived at 136.

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113: The address of the building in the movie Sliver--though it was actually filmed at 211 Madison.

115-123: These rowhouses were built in 1865. Architect Robert H. Richardson lived at 117.

South:

152: Landmarked townhouse was built in 1858, remodeled in 1935. Notable for its walled front garden.

160: El Rio Grande

166: This was the address from 1901-12 of Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor of Mount Rushmore.

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Corner (315 Lexington): Cuban Mission to the U.N.

133: Detective novelist Dashiell Hammett lived here in 1931, when he was writing The Thin Man.

149: Carriage House Center for Global Issues is based in a landmarked 1902 stable, originally owned by George S. Bowdoin. Has an innovative roof garden installed by the environmental group Earth Pledge.

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240: The theft of network cards from this Verizon facility in May 2004 caused some to lose Internet access.

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Corner (222 E 39th): Eastgate Tower, an Affinia hotel. Includes the restaurant Sonora.

(240 E 39th): Paramount Tower, 51-story apartment building built in 1998. Designed (by Costas Kondylis) to withstand an earthquake.

South:

Corner (700 2nd Ave): Bravest on 38th, neighborhood bar that was called Wanda's Full Moon Saloon. Wanda, who's married to a firefighter who survived September 11, renamed the bar in place as a memorial to "all those who gave their lives on 9/11 and also to all those brave soldiers who died, fought and are still fighting for our country."

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311 (corner): The Whitney apartments (1986).

South:

Block (645 1st Ave): The Corinthian; 1987 luxury apartment building with distinctive fluted bay windows. "Corinthian" is used to mean "luxurious" because Corinth was the party town of ancient Greece--noted as the home of Aphrodite's sacred prostitutes.

The fountain in front of the building is called Pierene--named for the fountain in Corinth where the flying horse Pegasus was captured.

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325: Permanent Mission of Indonesia to the U.N.

South:

Corner (660 1st Ave): This office building was originally the Kips Bay Brewing Company's brewery. NYU Medical Center and other healthcare practices have offices here.

Bide-a-Wee

410: Animal shelter has placed 1 million pets in homes since 1903--and does not destroy unwanted animals.

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Con Edison Waterside Station

The section of the plant by the corner of 38th Street is actually a cool example of old-time industrial architecture--it's unlikely that a replacement building would be more attractive. Bears the inscription "NY Edison"-- it's strange to think that the electric company was founded by the same guy who invented the lightbulb etc.