Old P.S. 80 Now a Best Western

`Eight grades all in this one place. The door in front of the van had "Girls" chiseled in stone at lintel. Steps are gone. Boys entered around the corner on the left. They too had chiseled lintel. Boys and girls played separetely in fenced off areas. Perhaps this was a relic of the sexual repression of the Victorian age. The front had magnificent fan out stairs, which are now gone. It is now the City View Inn, but if you request a room with a city view they will not reserve it.
We had no fire escapes, but the inn does.

I found this entrance picture I mentioned above today 8-22-05.
Isn't this extraordinary? Do you think any school could do this today??

Maps-Blissville, New York 1776-2005

COLORFUL BLISSVILLE IN 1950
Most of the blank block areas had apartments of brick but many were still wood. 11 thru 15, 16, 17,18, 20, 22, 28, 29 were wood. Various colors of shingle were commonly used to cover the wood siding as it aged. See the 1873 plot map to see what was there then was still in 1950. Opposite 22 at the cemetery wall is where we cooked taters.

Neziah Bliss plots. Where you see a lot in gray indicates a structure. Note how few in 1873. Old letter name streets were changed to numbers. The diagonal street that now comes from upper center to lower left, (Van Dam St) was not yet laid out.

Blissville 1891. Calvary Cemetery not shown. Greenpoint Ave is the long diagonal from lower left to upper right.


Blissville is 2.5 miles east of Manhattan, across the East River. It is due east of the Chrysler Building. Approx. 40 acres were bought and developed by Neziah Bliss in 1847. Newtown Creek is a tidal estuary of the East River and until the 50's was an important commercial waterway. Trucks largely replaced its transport function.

Historical Map

Blissville is where the words "New Town" are in the center. The text says head of Newtown Creek where Gen. Washington embarked with the 1st Div on 13th Sept (1776) which were followed by the remainder of the army. This is from a campaign map by Wm.Faden published Oct 19th 1777.
This is a cropped version of the big map. This move by Washington was an important one in the war. See blowup below.


The dashes show where the British army was planning to pinch GW, but he slipped out on Newtown Creek and lived to continue his winning strategy of catch me if you can, until the Brits gave up.

So one might say that the Blissville/Laurel Hill's Newtown Creek played an crucial part in our victory.