An ultra-useful guide that brings together all the information necessary to enjoy the waterfront, in a compact, well-organized form - Phillip Lopate, author of Waterfront: A Journey Around Manhattan Use this guide to discover the beaches, boardwalks, historic sites, and marine attractions, as well as the limitless opportunities for waterside fun, dining, and adventure in the five boros of New York. Designed for travelers and locals, alike, Going Coastal New York City offers the best, most comprehensive information on what's happening along New York City's over 500 miles of coastline.
The City is an Ecosystem maps an interdisciplinary, community-engaged response to the great ecological crises of our time—climate change, biodiversity loss, and social inequality—which pose particular challenges for cities, where more than half the world’s population currently live. Across more than twenty chapters, the three parts of the book cover historical and scientific perspectives on the city as an ecosystem; human rights to the city in relation to urban sustainability; and the city as a sustainability classroom at all educational levels inside and outside formal classroom spaces. It argues that such efforts must be interdisciplinary and widespread to ensure an informed public and educated new generation are equipped to face an uncertain future, particularly relevant in the post-COVID-19 world. Gathering multiple interdisciplinary and community-engaged perspectives on these environmental crises, with contemporary and historical case study discussions, this timely volume cuts across the humanities and social and health sciences, and will be of interest to policymakers, urban ecologists, activists, built environment professionals, educators, and advanced students concerned with the future of our cities.
A tribute to Henry Hudson's discovery of the river that bears his name recounts how the historical explorer defied commission orders to find an eastern passage to China by redirecting his voyage along the coastline from Spanish Florida to the Grand Banks, an effort that laid a foundation for New York's establishment as a global capital. Reprint.
Originally compiled in 1941, this republication retains its cast of colorful characters--ranging from pirates and smugglers to merchants and public officials--and includes new historical information and updated material.
Uncovers the hidden costs and contradictions of sustainable policies in an era driven by real estate development From state-of-the-art parks to rooftop gardens, efforts to transform New York City’s unsightly industrial waterfronts into green, urban oases have received much public attention. In The Sustainability Myth, Melissa Checker uncovers the hidden costs—and contradictions—of the city’s ambitious sustainability agenda in light of its equally ambitious redevelopment imperatives. Focusing on industrial waterfronts and historically underserved places like Harlem and Staten Island’s North Shore, Checker takes an in-depth look at the dynamics of environmental gentrification, documenting the symbiosis between eco-friendly initiatives and high-end redevelopment and its impact on out-of-the-way, non-gentrifying neighborhoods. At the same time, she highlights the valiant efforts of local environmental justice activists who work across racial, economic, and political divides to challenge sustainability’s false promises and create truly viable communities. The Sustainability Myth is a cautionary, eye-opening tale, taking a hard—but ultimately hopeful—look at environmental justice activism and the politics of sustainability.
Lake Superior--its people and places--feature in this anthology of short stories by nine writers from Minnesota and Wisconsin. The power of stories lures an aging man on a road trip back home, north on Highway 61. Through her painting of a river, an Ojibway woman teaches a historian about himself and her culture's connections to the land and water. A woman confronts a suicidal man on Stoney Point, led by the mystical power of water to magnify her psychic abilities. Another woman finds meaning in the intricate curves and fiery bands of an agate. A shoreline boulder offers its magical views on human life. A ship captain from long ago faces a coldwater death in Whitefish Bay. Life comes full circle in the currents of the lake for a young man from Two Harbors. A ghostly fur trapper haunts Madeline Island. A family's powerful saga unfolds on the shores of Lake Superior.
After the Civil War, the New York City's East River was a massive unsolved and dangerous navigation problem. A major waterway into and out of the Harbor--where customs revenue equaled 42 percent of the U.S. Government's income--the river's many hindrances, centered around Hell Gate, included whirlpools, rocks and reefs. These, combined with swirling currents and powerful tides, led to deaths, cargo losses and destruction of vessels. Charged with clearing the river, General John Newton of the Army Corps of Engineers went to work with the most rudimentary tools for diving, mining, lighting, pumping and drilling. His crews worked for 20 years, using a steam-drilling scow of his own design and a new and perilous explosive--nitroglycerine. In 1885, Newton destroyed the nine-acre Flood Rock with 282,730 pounds of high explosives. The demolition was watched by tens of thousands. This book chronicles the clearing of the East River and the ingenuity of the Army engineer whose work was praised by the National Academy of Sciences.
The immigration station at New York's Ellis Island opened in 1892 and remained the largest U.S. port for immigrant entry until World War I. In popular memory, Ellis Island is typically seen as a gateway for Europeans seeking to join the "great American melting pot." But as this fresh examination of Ellis Island's history reveals, it was also a major site of immigrant detention and exclusion, especially for Chinese, Japanese, and other Asian travelers and maritime laborers who reached New York City from Europe, the Americas and the Caribbean, and even within the United States. And from 1924 to 1954, the station functioned as a detention camp and deportation center for a range of people deemed undesirable. Anna Pegler-Gordon draws on immigrants' oral histories and memoirs, government archives, newspapers, and other sources to reorient the history of migration and exclusion in the United States. In chronicling the circumstances of those who passed through or were detained at Ellis Island, she shows that Asian exclusion was both larger in scope and more limited in force than has been previously recognized.
Saved at the Seawall is the definitive history of the largest ever waterborne evacuation. Jessica DuLong reveals the dramatic story of how the New York Harbor maritime community heroically delivered stranded commuters, residents, and visitors out of harm's way. Even before the US Coast Guard called for "all available boats," tugs, ferries, dinner boats, and other vessels had sped to the rescue from points all across New York Harbor. In less than nine hours, captains and crews transported nearly half a million people from Manhattan. Anchored in eyewitness accounts and written by a mariner who served at Ground Zero, Saved at the Seawall weaves together the personal stories of people rescued that day with those of the mariners who saved them. DuLong describes the inner workings of New York Harbor and reveals the collaborative power of its close-knit community. Her chronicle of those crucial hours, when hundreds of thousands of lives were at risk, highlights how resourcefulness and basic human goodness triumphed over turmoil on one of America's darkest days.
Mississippians have long found the need for an arsenal of interesting, lethal, and imaginative weapons. Native Americans, frontier outlaws, antebellum duelists, authorities and protestors in the civil rights struggle, and present-day hunters have used weapons to survive, to advance causes, or to levy societal control. In Weapons of Mississippi, Kevin Dougherty examines the roles weapons have played in twelve phases of state history. Dougherty not only offers technical background for these devices, but he also presents a new way of understanding the state's history-through the context and development of its weapons. Chapters in the book bring the story of Mississippi's weapons up to date with a discussion of the modern naval shipbuilders on the Coast and interviews with hunters keen to pass on family traditions. As Mississippi progressed from a sparsely populated wilderness to a structured modern society, management of weaponry became one of the main requirements for establishing centralized law and order. Indians, outlaws, runaway slaves, secessionists, and night riders have all posed challenges to the often better-armed authorities. Today, weapons unite Mississippians in the popular pastime of hunting deer, turkey, dove, rabbit, and even bear. In the state's social and cultural character, a shared lore and knowledge of hunting crosses age, racial, and economic lines. Weapons, once used for mere survival, have transformed into instruments masterfully crafted for those harvesting the state's abundant game.
