This history of early New York City conveys a strong sense of place as it covers the period when the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam was a sprawling seaport, full of activity and promise. Russell Shorto offers illuminating portraits of two key players: Peter Stuyvesant, governor, and Adriaen van der Donck, a lawyer and historian whose nearly lost ...
This is a history of the Johnstown Flood. On May 31, 1889, following a storm, the old earth dam at Lake Conemaugh--outside of Johnstown, Pennsylvania--burst. The torrent of water which that flooded the Little Conemaugh River Valley killed over 2,000 people. The lake was home to the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, the membership of which ...
As he did previously in COD: A BIOGRAPHY OF THE FISH THAT CHANGED THE WORLD and in SALT: A WORLD HISTORY, historian Mark Kurlansky takes a unique, and rewarding, entry-point into the past, this time relating the rich social history of New York City through its once-plentiful denizen of the deep, the oyster. Manhattan's harbor was once ideal for ...
So much was lost on September 11, 2001. On that morning, the World Trade Center was a veritable mini-city, bustling with activity, with over 14,000 people beginning their workday in offices, or otherwise on the job, as they had so many days before. The human loss is made clear in this stunning feat of reportage that reconstructs the events of that ...
At the corner of 71st Street and Park Avenue, on Manhattan's Upper East Side, is the famed limestone apartment building that Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, Chryslers, and Ron Perelman have called home. In 740 PARK, society reporter Michael Gross chronicles the fascinating history of the massive 1930 luxury building whose spacious duplexes and ...
Cannato masterfully illuminates the story of Ellis Island from the days when it hosted pirate hangings to the turn of the 20th century when massive migrations sparked fierce debates. b&w photo insert.
This engaging history of the house that has served as home to U.S. presidents for more than two centuries revises and enlarges William Seale's 1986 classic account of the White House's architectural, social, and cultural history. Besides updating the original volumes, the new edition includes chapters on the presidencies of Dwight D. Eisenhower, ...
An award-winning historian presents the first comprehensive account of the Civil War battle in 30 years, vividly recounting the heightening tension of the 1863 campaign, the decisions made by commanders and the struggle endured by thousands of soldiers. Publication will coincide with the anniversary of the battle on July 1. 60 maps.
This newest book by Pulitzer Prize winner Kaplan is a sparkling combination of biography, social history, architectural appreciation, and pure pleasure, as he looks at the Astor familys dynasty and its contributions to the city of New York.
This work offers an urban exploration of the oddities and artifacts of New York City's past that are hidden in plain across the boroughs, from the World's first Hall of Fame in the Bronx to the remnants of the original Penn Station in Manhattan to what may be the only statue to a gynecologist at Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn. "Forgotten New York" is ...
In the late 1960s, an archivist in Albany made a remarkable discovery: pages of centuries-old correspondence, court cases, legal contracts, and government reports from a forgotten society, the Dutch colony of Manhattan, which was founded only three years after the Pilgrims landed at Cape Cod.
This acclaimed history of New York concentrates on the city's dark underside, particularly in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A gifted writer with a lucid yet lyrical style, Sante brings an incredible secret history to life. He writes of saloons frequented only by street urchins under the age of twelve, of waterfront hotels with ...
The Hudson River has always played a vital role in American culture. Flowing through a valley of sublime scenery, the great river uniquely connects America's past with its present and future. This book traces the course of the river through four centuries, recounting the stories of explorers and traders, artists and writers, entrepreneurs and ...
The building of the Erie Canal in the first quarter of the nineteenth century is one of the greatest and most riveting stories of American ingenuity. Featuring a rich cast of characters, including not only political visionaries like Washington and Jefferson, but also a huge platoon of Irish diggers as well as the canal's first travellers, "Wedding ...
Takes readers back to the beginning of the war on terror - not the atrocities of September 11, but the first bombing of the World Trade Center in February 1993 when radical Islamists declared war on the United States. This book takes readers inside the twisted world of Islamic terror.
This stunning historical account of a forgotten chapter of New York City history examines the events of 1741 when, following a string of fires in buildings owned by wealthy people, a rumor of a slave rebellion spread through the city. As a result, African Americans were tried and convicted, burned at the stake, hanged, deported to the Caribbean, ...
First published in 1927, this classic has long had a cult following because of its keenly observed and gritty rendering of old New York, and of the habitues of neighborhoods such as the Five Points, the Lower East Side, and the waterfront. Asbury writes of gangs which predated the rise of the mafia--gangs with colorful names such as the Bowery ...
Without warning, an ordinary day in 1938 turned to hell when a hurricane descended on the East Coast, hitting Long Island and Rhode Island especially hard. Hundreds of people were killed. Historian Cathy Burns focuses on the ordinary people caught up in the storm as she reconstructs the events of that day using interviews with survivors as well ...
A group of gritty, larger-than-life personalities takes center stage as Downey presents the inside story of one of America's most elite firehouses and the extraordinary brotherhood of men who face extreme danger every day.
In swift, witty chapters that flawlessly capture the pace and character of New York City, acclaimed diarist Edward Robb Ellis presents his masterpiece: a thorough, and thoroughly readable, history of America's largest metropolis. Ellis narrates some of the most significant events of the past three hundred years and morethe Revolutionary and Civil ...
In this gripping narrative, Jonnes tells the fascinating story of the struggle to connect New York City to the rest of the nation and the high-stakes drama that pitted the money and will of the nation's mightiest railroad against the machinations of labor agitators.
William Marcy "Boss" Tweed was a politician who was more corrupt than most. In this historical biography, Kenneth D. Ackerman deftly balances the two sides of this larger-than-life figure who, as mayor of New York City in the second half of the 19th century, shaped the city for both bad and good. Ackerman examines Tweed's roots in the already ...
Mrs Astor, undisputed queen of New York society in the decades before World War I, used her prestige to create a social aristocracy in the city; an invitation to one of her parties was a coveted mark of social acceptance, and exclusion meant social banishment. Mrs Astor's story, which reads like a novel by Edith Wharton, sheds light on the origins ...
When it first opened on October 27, 1904, the New York City subway ran twenty-two miles from City Hall to 145th Street and Lenox Avenue - the longest stretch ever built at one time. From that initial route through the completion of the Independent Subway line (IND) in the 1940s, the subway grew to cover 722 miles - long enough to reach from New ...
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