No comments about Streetwise New York, New Jersey Map - Laminated Area Street Map - with integrated subway stations.

No comments about Rand McNally Fab Map Midtown Manhattan, New York: Featuring the Theater District (Rand McNally fabMAP Midtown Manhattan).

1 comments about Scenes & Walks in the Northern Shawangunks.

1. 
   Jack Fagan has written a delightful guide to foot trails and carriage ways in this interesting part of the Gunks. Superb illustrations.
   
   Be sure you get the third edition released in 2006; Chapter 9 is extensively rewritten to include new land and trails. The New York New Jersey Trail Conference carries up to date changes in the trails, parking and access points. All three areas are located 90 minutes from New York City.
   
   Background information.
   
   Minnewaska State Park Preserve is a 14,500 acre park located on the Shawangunk Ridge in New York near New Paltz, New York. There are outstanding views of the nearby Catskill Mountains. The park has a complex history of hotels, fires, and lawsuits. Eventually New York State bought the property in 1987 and opened the Minnewaska State Park Preserve in 1993.
   
   Mohonk is anchored by the Mohonk Mountain House, a grand 265 room Victorian Castle built in 1869. It overlooks Lake Mohonk in an incredibly beautiful setting. Day hikers have access to Mohonk's 85 miles of hiking trails, and sometimes to other facilities available to Mohonk guests, including tennis, midweek golf, lake swimming, boating, ice skating, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing and children's programs.
   
   Sam's Point Preserve, owned by the Open Space Institute and managed by the Nature Conservancy, is located just outside Ellenville and covers the highest points on the Shawangunk Ridge. Verkeerderkill Falls is a spectacular waterfall that drops through a notch in the sheer white cliffs. This is a particularly good area for hiking on weekends, when Minnewaska and Mohonk tend to be much more crowded.
   
   "Gunks" is a shortening of the "Shawangunks" (Sha-WAN-gunks) Mountain Range which stretches over 50 miles in a southwest to northeast direction from Port Jervis to Rosendale, reaching 260 feet in height (2,200' above sea level), and is home to the four most popular and prominent climbing cliffs: the Trapps, Near Trapps, Skytop and Millbrook. The ridge and its slopes contain over 150,000 acres spreading across 16 towns in three counties. Continuing south, the ridge becomes the Kittatinny Mountains in New Jersey and then part of the chain of Appalachian Mountains all the way down to Georgia.
   
   Minnewaska and Mohonk have good websites; Sam's Point website is just getting started; and a general website covering the entire area, including climbing opportunities, is can be found by searching on Gunk on Google.
   
   
   Robert C. Ross

1 comments about Meadowlands.

1. Its important to know the history of places. Too often history is dry and full of dates. The Meadowlands by Robert Sullivan is not like this. It is the story of his, perhaps unnatural obsession with visiting the rundown, polluted, odd place called the Meadowlands. The Meadowlands are/were a large wetland along the Hackensack river in New Jersey, within sight of Manhattan. Over the years it has been the home of pirates, inventors, mafioso, and plain old regular people. Sullivan takes you through the history and people as he tells the story of his expeditions to the Meadowlands to canoe and find places whose location has faded in modern memory. While I would not say that the book rivals Thoreau's Walden pond, it does give a good sense of the place, its place in history, and the people who lived there and continue to live there. Its a good read, it can be read in episodes, and will not bore you.

5 comments about Secret Places of Staten Island: A Visitor's Guide to Scenic.

1. This book reviews a series of nature trails in New York's "forgotten borough" -Staten Island. It details sights that even lifelong natives may have missed and scenes that no one would imagine could be in the nation's largest city. If you intend to take these trails, buy and go soon- already one of the sights detailed (St. Elisabeth's in Mount Lorretto) is gone.



2. Jaded by the social stigmatism of the "forgotten borough" I arrived to Staten Island as a reluctant new resident. This book was presented to me as a welcome gift. I have enjoyed every bit of it. It not only opened my eyes - a Manhattan transplant - but the eyes of native Staten Islanders with whom I have shared many stories. We use this book as a "secret adventure guide book" and take the children in our life on hikes as well as the out-of-towners who think the only thing Staten Island has is the world's largest landfill. This handy book is written with wit, whimsy and factual information. The directives are clear. Just get there before the developers knock down the tress and build more attached houses.



3. I've lived on Staten Island for 12 years, but not until I'd been given Mr. Kershner's book had I any idea of the extent to which the island remains pristine and marvelous. I regularly photocopy his wonderful hand drawn maps to take my kids (and the neighbors'!) and wildlife adventures that less informed people travel hundreds of miles to experience.

   This book is a fabulous mix of nuts and bolts trail-finding, anecdotal history, and flora and fauna appreciation guide. I've had the book for 4 years and haven't made it to every "secret spot" yet, but whenever the kids start staring at the TV too much, I grab this book, the kids, and head out for another urban adventure. It never disappoints. Ironically, I hope it doesn't get too popular, because I love being alone in all those Staten Island woodlands! It's the first thing I show to people who think we've got nothing but a dump, a mall, and an expressway.




4. Staten Island has a bad rap--mostly because of the landfill and the horrors of the West Shore Expressway. Thanks to the efforts of people like Bruce Kershner, Richmond County is getting some the recognition it deserves. "Secret Places of Staten Island: A Visitor's Guide to Scenic and Historic Treasures of Staten Island" is filled with maps and suggested visiting spots of the beautifully preserved natural and historic areas of New York's largest borough. And what maps! They are clear and informative. What the book also makes clear is that Staten Island is the absolute antithesis to Manhattan. With the exception of Central Park, Manhattan has no concern for nature. (Even Central Park is artificial! It looks nothing like the Manhattan that was there pre-1700.) For New Yorkers, the book makes it obvious that you don't have to travel miles away to visit pristine forest! And you don't have to go to Boston or Colonial Williamsburg to see some of the oldest structures in America. It's all here on Staten Island.



5. Bruce wrote this book as a labor of love. Sharing the places he grew up exploring, finding some of the natural, unexpected Staten Island treasures was an activity we all shared as a family. I have my own personally inscribed copy and keep it to remind me of the jaunts up Todt Hill, digging for minerals, rocks & fossils in the abandoned never completed SI Expressway exit rock quary. The glacier terminal moraine is very pronounced, you just have to know what you're looking at, when it's right in front of you. We lost Bruce in February 2007. This book is one of Bruce's first in a series and should inspire everyone who reads it to look beyond Hylan Blvd, the Mall and the dump. Staten Island once was and still remains a place of interesting history and natural places.

4 comments about New York Fly Fishing Guide.

1. You won't learn anything from this book you can'f figure out for yourself by driving by the streams they review. Its a very thin book, and addresses each river quite superficially - its more like a brochure than a comprehensive guide to NY fly fishing waters.



2. The guide had some good suggestions for my short trip in NY. I only had a a few days to explore a limited number of streams in the capital region and the book gave some useful advise. I am looking forward to my next NY fly fishing trip and plan to consult this guide.



3. I agree with the previous review, this is a mediocre book. In fact I personally took two of the photos on the cover, as well as most of large trout photos contained in the book, all were caught in New York, but the author gave the photo credits to the owner of a NY tackle shop. So, I really do not trust the written text as being accurate. That said, NY has some of the best fly fishing in the country and I've learned not to give fly shop owners copies of my fishing photos.



4. I have fished in New York for the past 30 years and have referenced this book numerous times for new places to wet a line. I find it's brief descriptions and accurate accounts of New York's fly waters simple and easy to reference. The author does a wonderful job of covering the state. He has included a few real gems that would be easily overlooked if you didn't read into his subtle suggestions. You find yourself referencing this guide repeatedly once you pick it up. It's a keeper!

1 comments about A Photo Tour of New York, Second Edition (Photo Tour Books).

1. This book is primarily a book of photographs of NYC. Many of the pictures are skyline pictures including the World Trade Center. They are most beautiful photos especially considering that the World Trade Center can no longer be photographed due to the tragedy of 9/11.

5 comments about Peppe the Lamplighter (Caldecott Honor Book).

1. "Peppe the Lamplighter" combines a story by Elisa Bartone with illustrations by Ted Lewin. The story takes place "[a] long time ago when there was no electricity and the street lamps in Little Italy had to be lit by hand." The hero of the book is Peppe, who lives with his widowed father and sisters in a tenement. Peppe's decision to get a job as a lamplighter leads to conflict between Peppe and his father.

   This is a good story that is greatly enhanced by Lewin's superb artwork. Most of the illustrations are two-page spreads that are packed full of energy and emotion. Lewin's realistic style is well-suited to capturing many colorful details: the sausages hanging in the butcher shop, a crowded street scene, the old-fashioned iron stove in Peppe's home, etc. Overall, a memorable celebration of Italian-American history.




2. I purchased this book for my husband for Father's Day (he's Italian American")--I didn't really think that our then 2.5 year old would really care for the book. But he loves it! It's a good story, although at times the messages can be a bit confusing for a very young child--but my son seems to enjoys the illustrations, the sounds of the Italian names, and of course the most elemental aspects of the story.



3. There's a whole genre of picture books that examine the working class members of American society throughout history. These stories are usually based on the lives of the relatives and ancestors of the authors. "Peppe the Lamplighter" is no exception. Loosely based on the grandfather of author Elisa Bartone, the book examines one boy's occupation and his struggle be accepted in the eyes of his father.
   
   Peppe lives with his sick father and seven sisters (not including the one in Naples) in the section of New York known as Little Italy. Taking place in what looks to be the 1910s, Peppe moves from store to store, attempting to find work. His father, is too sick to work himself, and all the children in the family must strive to find some kind of money. One day, old Domenico the lamplighter asks Peppe if he would light the lamps for him while he returns to Italy to fetch his wife. Peppe agrees readily and is delighted with the prospect. Delight slowly sours to shame, however, when his father is horrified by the job. Says he, "Did I come to America for my son to light the streetlamps?". As time goes by, Peppe's disenchantment with the job grows until he doesn't light the lamps at all. Only through the discovery of how important his job is to others can Peppe find the strength to return to lighting the lamps of New York City.
   
   The pictures in this book are wonderfully rendered. Here we find the New York City tenements in all their filthy glory. At the same time, we see the strength of the people living in them. The first painting in the book shows Peppe and his family staring at the viewer as if they were posing for a formal family photograph. The light from a single latern lights them all, and illustrator Ted Lewin shows off his talents. In many ways, the book is similar to Chris K. Soentpiet's style (of "Molly Bannaky" fame). Reading this book is to actually find yourself in early New York itself. Crowds come alive and individuals display a wide range of emotions. The best picture in the whole book, to my mind, is the image of Peppe lifting his little sister so that she can light the lamp on the street herself. The light is above them, illuminating their faces with incredibly intensity. The two stare up at it, entranced.
   
   The story itself if good, if not overwhelming. Peppe's father has a somewhat unbelievable change of heart towards the end of the tale. For a man who has harbored so much bitterness towards his son's chosen profession, he seems to come around to it mighty fast when the mood calls for it. Otherwise, it's lovely. Peppe compares the lighting of the lamps to the lighting of candles at Mass, and even goes so far as to say a small prayer for each. Small details like this truly bring the story to life.
   
   The book celebrates one small boy who can, in his sister Assunta's words, "scare the dark away". It is a book about how every human being, if they've a mind to, can bring light into the world in their own humble fashion. Peppe may only be a lamplighter, but even his father recognizes by the end that this honest job gives safety and comfort to others. We should all be so lucky as to have jobs that do half as much.



4. A young boy of modest means seeks a job to contribute to the needs of his family. Initially, his father is disappointed in the lowly responsibility that his son fulfills. The young man takes inspiration from his sister's admiration of him and finds that his job as a humble lamplighter blesses others beyond his understanding. The breath-taking illustrations span the entire two-page spread. This is a beautiful story of how everyone has their important role in life and can embrace it with excellence and passion.



5. My son is 5 and absolutely loves this book. It's a story about young boy and how he must help to care for his large Italian family that has come to America in hopes of having their dreams fulfilled. Disappointment of a father leads his young son to think his job is meager. But in the end one little boy does make a difference, for without his light the whole world is a dark place. The book just gives you a warm wonderful feeling when you finish reading it. The illustrations are beautifully drawn and give you the contact to really feel what Peppe and his family are feeling.

No comments about A Guide to New York's Fetish Underground.

1 comments about "Great Graves of Upstate New York!": The Upstate New York Final Resting Places of 70 True American Legends.

1. This is an easy-to-read combination travelogue and history, that I found irresistable. Each brief entry tells us something new and fascinating about famous, as well as well as less known but fascinating people buried in upsate New York. I started by reading stories about some of the people I knew of and ended reading the whole book.
   Anyone planning in a trip to upstate NY should buy this book and make some of these gravesites part of your tour. You will see and learn about a whole new aspect of the state.