83 books match the query 'Northeast' and 24 start with t

cover of Tales of South Jersey: Profiles and Personalities

Tales of South Jersey

Profiles and Personalities

Waltzer, Jim

Rutgers University Press, 2001

There's much more to southern New Jersey than the Pine Barrens and the Jersey Devil, and this collection by journalists Jim Waltzer and Tom Wilk tells readers all about it. Oceanside and bayside towns offer a box seat from which to observe the regions rich history and the summery lore of the wonders of nature. Landlocked towns boast their own homespun and hell-raising traditions and idiosyncrasies.

Waltzer and Wilk have compiled almost fifty stories about the state's southernmost counties. Although the focus is on Atlantic City and its remarkable people, outsize structures, and quirky events, the storytelling ranges across the wider region to provide an insiders look at history as it was being made. You'll encounter gangsters and gamblers, baseball hitters and hurricanes, famous piers and hotels, landmark theaters and eateries, splashy events and unheralded oddities ¾ in sum, a cross-section of the regions character and characters.

The authors divide their book into six sections: entertainment, famous and infamous events, innovations and innovators, leisure and recreation, room and board, and sports legends. Within each section are the rich and varied stories Waltzer and Wilk have collected for New Jerseyans reading pleasure.

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cover of The Alewives' Tale: The Life History and Ecology of River Herring in the Northeast

The Alewives' Tale

The Life History and Ecology of River Herring in the Northeast

Barbara Brennessel

University of Massachusetts Press, 2014

While on vacation in 1980, biologist Barbara Brennessel and her family came across an amazing sight: hundreds of small silver fish migrating from the Atlantic Ocean, across a channel connecting two ponds in the town of Wellfleet on Cape Cod. She later learned that these tiny river herring were important for the ecology and economy of the region and that volunteers were counting fewer and fewer fish migrating each year.

The Alewives' Tale describes the plight of alewives and blueback herring, two fish species that have similar life histories and are difficult to distinguish by sight. Collectively referred to as river herring, they have been economically important since colonial times as food, fertilizer, and bait. In recent years they have attracted much attention from environmentalists, especially as attempts are being made, on and beyond Cape Cod, to restore the rivers, streams, ponds, lakes, and estuaries that are crucial for their reproduction and survival.

Brennessel provides an overview of the biology of the fish—from fertilized eggs to large schools of adults that migrate in the Atlantic Ocean—while describing the habitats at different stages of their life history. She explores the causes of the dramatic decline of river herring since the mid-twentieth century and the various efforts to restore these iconic fish to the historic populations that treated many onlookers to spectacular inland migrations each spring.
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cover of The Birth of American Tourism: New York, the Hudson Valley, and American Culture, 1790-1835

The Birth of American Tourism

New York, the Hudson Valley, and American Culture, 1790-1835

Richard H. Gassan

University of Massachusetts Press, 2008

Today the idea of traveling within the United States for leisure purposes is so commonplace it is hard to imagine a time when tourism was not a staple of our cultural life. Yet as Richard H. Gassan persuasively demonstrates, at the beginning of the nineteenth century travel for leisure was strictly an aristocratic luxury beyond the means of ordinary Americans. It wasn't until the second decade of the century that the first middle-class tourists began to follow the lead of the well-to-do, making trips up the Hudson River valley north of New York City, and in a few cases beyond. At first just a trickle, by 1830 the tide of tourism had become a flood, a cultural change that signaled a profound societal shift as the United States stepped onto the road that would eventually lead to a modern consumer society.

According to Gassan, the origins of American tourism in the Hudson Valley can be traced to a confluence of historical accidents, including the proximity of the region to the most rapidly growing financial and population center in the country, with its expanding middle class, and the remarkable beauty of the valley itself. But other developments also played a role, from the proliferation of hotels to accommodate tourists, to the construction of an efficient transportation network to get them to their destinations, to the creation of a set of cultural attractions that invested their experience with meaning. In the works of Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper and the paintings of Thomas Cole and others of the Hudson River School, travelers in the region encountered the nation's first literary and artistic movements. Tourism thus did more than provide an escape from the routines of everyday urban life; it also helped Americans of the early republic shape a sense of national identity.
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cover of The Bronx: The Ultimate Guide to New York City's Beautiful Borough

The Bronx

The Ultimate Guide to New York City's Beautiful Borough

Ultan, Lloyd

Rutgers University Press, 2015

Often overlooked by most tourists and locals alike, the Bronx—one of five boroughs that comprise the city of New York—is rich in cultural and historical attractions. From the Bronx Zoo (the largest urban zoo in the United States) to the New York Botanical Garden (one of the most visited botanical gardens in the world), this borough has something for everyone. Visitors can explore historical locations (including where George Washington slept and where Edgar Allan Poe lived and worked), watch a game in one of the most famous baseball stadiums in the United States—Yankee Stadium—and sample delicious Italian food in New York’s real “Little Italy” on Arthur Avenue and New England style seafood at City Island along the edge of Long Island Sound. Author and foremost historian of the Bronx Lloyd Ultan and educator Shelley Olson have teamed up to create a handy guidebook with detailed maps that will provide all the information prospective visitors need for planning their adventures to famous and little-known sites, including the hours, admission fees, and directions to featured attractions.
 
The Bronx—which includes thirty-six color photographs—provides visitors with informative chapters on more than twelve of the borough’s extraordinary destinations as well as self-guided walking tours of some of the most ethnically, architecturally, and historically diverse neighborhoods. History buffs will find beautifully preserved eighteenth- and nineteenth-century homes, the Hall of Fame for Great Americans (which pays homage to many familiar faces in American history), and Woodlawn Cemetery (the final resting place for prominent Americans including Duke Ellington, Joseph Pulitzer, Gloria Vanderbilt Whitney, and Thomas Nast). In addition to the botanical garden, nature lovers can enjoy the beautiful Pelham Bay Park and Van Cortlandt Park. The Bronx also highlights the surprising number of art galleries, museums, and performance venues that visitors are sure to enjoy, further demonstrating the borough’s cultural prominence. .
 
 
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cover of The Brooklyn Experience: The Ultimate Guide to Neighborhoods & Noshes, Culture & the Cutting Edge

The Brooklyn Experience

The Ultimate Guide to Neighborhoods & Noshes, Culture & the Cutting Edge

Freudenheim, Ellen

Rutgers University Press, 2016

From Paris to Rio, everyone’s curious about hot, new Brooklyn. The Brooklyn Experience, Ellen Freudenheim’s fourth comprehensive Brooklyn guidebook, offers a true insider’s guide, complete with photographs, itineraries, and insights  into one of the most creative, dynamic cities in the modern world. 
 
Walk over the Brooklyn Bridge at dawn or sunset, discover thirty-eight unique Brooklyn neighborhoods, and experience the borough like a native. Find out where to go to the beach and to eat great pizza, what to do with the kids, how to enjoy free and cheap activities, and where to savor Brooklyn’s famous cuisines. Visit cool independent shops, greenmarkets, festivals, and delve into the vibrant new cultural scene at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Barclays Center, and the lively exploding neighborhoods of DUMBO, Williamsburg, and Bushwick.
 
Included in the book are essays and the pithy, sometimes funny comments of sixty cultural, literary, and culinary movers and shakers, culled from exclusive interviews with experts from the James Beard Foundation to the cofounder of the famous Brooklyn Book Festival, as well as MacArthur “genius” award winners, to young entrepreneurs, hipsters, and activists, all of whom have something to say about Brooklyn’s stunning renaissance.  Neighborhood profiles are rich in user-friendly information and details, including movies, celebrities, and novels associated with each neighborhood. There are also 800 listings of great restaurants, bars, shops, parks, cultural institutions, and historical sites, complete with contact information.  

Targeting the independent, curious traveler, The Brooklyn Experience includes a dozen “do-it-yourself” tours, including a visit to Woody Allen’s childhood neighborhood, and amazing Revolutionary and Civil War sites. 
 
Freudenheim draws clear—and sometimes surprising—connections between old and new Brooklyn. Written by an author with an astounding knowledge of all Brooklyn has to offer, The Brooklyn Experience will guide both first-time and repeat visitors, and will be a fun resource for Brooklynites who enjoy exploring their own hometown. 
 

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cover of The Common Pot: The Recovery of Native Space in the Northeast

The Common Pot

The Recovery of Native Space in the Northeast

Lisa Brooks

University of Minnesota Press, 2008

Illuminates the significance of writing to colonial-era Native American resistance

Literary critics frequently portray early Native American writers either as individuals caught between two worlds or as subjects who, even as they defied the colonial world, struggled to exist within it. In striking counterpoint to these analyses, Lisa Brooks demonstrates the ways in which Native leaders—including Samson Occom, Joseph Brant, Hendrick Aupaumut, and William Apess—adopted writing as a tool to reclaim rights and land in the Native networks of what is now the northeastern United States.

“The Common Pot,” a metaphor that appears in Native writings during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, embodies land, community, and the shared space of sustenance among relations. Far from being corrupted by forms of writing introduced by European colonizers, Brooks contends, Native people frequently rejected the roles intended for them by their missionary teachers and used the skills they acquired to compose petitions, political tracts, and speeches; to record community councils and histories; and most important, to imagine collectively the routes through which the Common Pot could survive.Reframing the historical landscape of the region, Brooks constructs a provocative new picture of Native space before and after colonization. By recovering and reexamining Algonquian and Iroquoian texts, she shows that writing was not a foreign technology but rather a crucial weapon in the Native Americans’ arsenal as they resisted—and today continue to oppose—colonial domination.
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cover of The George Washington Bridge: Poetry in Steel

The George Washington Bridge

Poetry in Steel

Michael Aaron Rockland

Rutgers University Press, 2008

Since opening in 1931, the George Washington Bridge, linking New York and New Jersey, has become the busiest bridge in the world, with 108 million vehicles crossing it in 2007. Many people also consider it the most beautiful bridge in the world, yet remarkably little has been written about this majestic structure.

Intimate and engaging, Michael Rockland's rich narrative presents perspectives on the GWB, as it is often called, that span history, architecture, engineering, transportation, design, the arts, politics, and even post-9/11 mentality. Stunning archival photos, from the late 1920s when the bridge was built through the present, are a powerful complement to the bridge's history. Rockland covers the competition between the GWB and the Brooklyn Bridge that parallels the rivalry between New Jersey and New York City. Readers will learn about the Swiss immigrant Othmar Ammann, an unsung hero who designed and built the GWB, and how a lack of funding during the Depression dictated the iconic, uncovered steel beams of its towers, which we admire today. There are chapters discussing accidents on the bridge, such as an airplane crash landing in the westbound lanes and the sad story of suicides off its span; the appearance of the bridge in media and the arts; and Rockland's personal adventures on the bridge, including scaling its massive towers on a cable.

Movies, television shows, songs, novels, countless images, and even PlayStation 2 games have aided the GWB in becoming a part of the global popular culture. This tribute will captivate residents living in the shadow of the GWB, the millions who walk, jog, bike, skate, or drive across it, as well as tourists and those who will visit it some day.
  • First major book on the George Washington Bridge
  • Full of amazing facts about the GWB that will surprise even bridge historians
  • Includes over 30 spectacular illustrations, ranging from archival photographs of the building of the bridge to those that show it draped in an enormous flag after 9/11
  • Includes personal accounts of the author's adventures on the bridge
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cover of The Good Beer Guide to New England

The Good Beer Guide to New England

Andy Crouch

University Press of New England, 2006

With wit, enthusiasm, and a deep respect for the craft of brewing, Andy Crouch profiles nearly one hundred establishments in New England, offering a description and history of each, as well as insights into each brewmaster's philosophy and brewing style. For each brewery and brewpub profiled, Crouch covers the range of beers available and identifies its flagship product; he also highlights his choice for its “best beer,” which is rarely its most popular or best known offering. Crouch offers judicious evaluations of food, ambience, and of course, the beer; he also provides information on the availability of tours, directions and parking, hours of operation, entertainment, local sights of interest, and whether beer is available for take-away. In addition, he includes essays on the brewing process, understanding and appreciating beer, and a list of “eleven great New England beer bars.” Whether well-brewed beer is the focus of a trip or a welcomed complement, beer enthusiasts and novices alike will find this guide a worthwhile companion wherever they travel in New England.
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cover of The Great American Road Trip: U.S. 1, Maine to Florida

The Great American Road Trip

U.S. 1, Maine to Florida

Genovese, Peter

Rutgers University Press, 1999

Take an unforgettable road trip down one of America’s most fascinating highways, U.S.

On what highway can you find the headquarters of the FBI, Dow Jones Interactive, and the National Enquirer? What road is home to the Bronx Zoo, the Okefenokee Swamp, and Flipper? On the side of what freeway can you find the Super Duper Weenie Wagon, Larry’s Redneck Bar, and the Big Chicken Barn? Peter Genovese found them all, along with about a million other fascinating and bizarre attractions, on U.S. 1, ‘the best damn highway in America,” as he calls it. Join him for the road trip of a lifetime The Great American Road Trip: A Journey Down U.S. 1.

U.S. 1 may not be America’s scenic highway, but it’s certainly the most colorful. It runs through Boston, New York, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Miami, in addition to Caribou, Maine, Quonochontaug, Rhode Island, and Alma, Georgia. It zig-zags along the wild and beautiful Maine coast and soars over the Atlantic Ocean as the Overseas Highway, one of the most spectacular stretches of road anywhere. The Star-Spangled Banner is on U.S. 1. Madonna lived on U.S. 1 (until she sold her house to Rosie O'Donnell). U.S. 1 is Main Street and the Miracle Mile, two-lane blacktop and six-lane expressway, straight as an arrow in some places and twistier than a Philadelphia soft pretzel in others.

 Genovese spent two years on U.S. 1, talking to everyone from doughnut makers, dolphin trainers, and swamp guides to real Miami vice cops and the keeper of the national parasite collection. His resulting book is the most complete portrait of an American highway ever written. With his unerring eye for detail, sense of humor, and understanding of human nature, Genovese takes readers on a sometimes funny, sometimes sad, always illuminating 2,450-mile journey from Fort Kent, Maine to Key West, Florida.

 Ride along with Genovese and grab a drink at the Last Resort Bar or the Last Chance Saloon, then pick up a paperback at the Banned Bookstore. Visit Oscar, the biggest gator in the Okefenokee Swamp, have dinner at Hog Heaven, and take in a Portland Seadogs baseball game. Tour a Budweiser brewery and go into the pit at a NASCAR race. Looking for someplace to stay? How about the world’s only underwater hotel, the Jules’ Undersea Lodge, or in a cabin made entirely from one pine tree at the Maine Idyll Motor Court? If it’s culture you seek, the highway boasts dozens of museums. While you may have heard of the Museum of Natural History and the National Museum of American Art, how about the Blacks in Wax Museum, Tragedy in the United States Museum, and the Mushroom Museum? There’s something for everyone on U.S. 1, and Genovese has written about it all in The Great American Road Trip.

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cover of The Hudson: An Illustrated Guide to the Living River

The Hudson

An Illustrated Guide to the Living River

Stephen P. Stanne

Rutgers University Press, 2021

Since 1996, The Hudson: An Illustrated Guide to the Living River has been an essential resource for understanding the full sweep of the great river's natural history and human heritage. This updated third edition includes the latest information about the ongoing fight against pollution and environmental damage to the river, plus vibrant new full-color illustrations showing the plants and wildlife that make this ecosystem so special.
 
This volume gives a detailed account of the Hudson River’s history, including the geological forces that created it, the various peoples who have lived on its banks, and the great works of art it has inspired. It also showcases the many species making a home on this waterway, including the Atlantic sturgeon, the bald eagle, the invasive zebra mussel, and the herons of New York Harbor. Combining both scientific and historical perspectives, this book demonstrates why the Hudson and its valley have been so central to the environmental movement. 
 
As it charts the progress made towards restoring the river ecosystem and the effects of emerging threats like climate change, The Hudson identifies concrete ways that readers can help. To that end, royalties from the sale of this book will go to the non-profit environmental advocacy group Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Inc.
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cover of The Jersey Shore: The Past, Present & Future of a National Treasure

The Jersey Shore

The Past, Present & Future of a National Treasure

Mazzagetti, Dominick

Rutgers University Press, 2018

In The Jersey Shore, Dominick Mazzagetti provides a modern re-telling of the history, culture, and landscapes of this famous region, from the 1600s to the present. The Shore, from Sandy Hook to Cape May, became a national resort in the late 1800s and contributes enormously to New Jersey’s economy today. The devastation of Hurricane Sandy in 2012 underscored the area’s central place in the state’s identity and the rebuilding efforts after the storm restored its economic health. 

Divided into chronological and thematic sections, this book will attract general readers interested in the history of the Shore: how it appeared to early European explorers; how the earliest settlers came to the beaches for the whaling trade; the first attractions for tourists in the nineteenth century; and how the coming of railroads, and ultimately automobiles, transformed the Shore into a major vacation destination over a century later. Mazzagetti also explores how the impact of changing national mores on development, race relations, and the environment, impacted the Shore in recent decades and will into the future. Ultimately, this book is an enthusiastic and comprehensive portrait by a native son, whose passion for the region is shared by millions of beachgoers throughout the Northeast.   
 
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cover of The Making of American Resorts: Saratoga Springs, Ballston Spa, and Lake George

The Making of American Resorts

Saratoga Springs, Ballston Spa, and Lake George

Corbett, Theodore

Rutgers University Press, 2001

What factors create a successful resort? How did the rise of lavish hotels and spas reflect the changing values of American society as the nineteenth century progressed? Historians have argued that resorts were created to meet the demands of a leisured social elite. Theodore Corbett offers a fresh, compelling argument, demonstrating that resorts created and re-created themselves to keep pace with changing times. Success came with anticipating demands, not just reacting to them.
 
Using an impressive variety of historical documents, Corbett focuses on the conditions underlying the rise—and the demise—of the resorts at Ballston Spa and Caldwell on Lake George. Both towns’ major landlord–developers saw tourism as only one vehicle that could lead to success. As a result of their divided policies, neither town invested in the proper infrastructure to make tourism an immediate succes. Both places were soon overshadowed by Saratoga Springs, which became the premier resort of the upper and middle class.
 
Due to complex interwoven influences, Saratoga Springs was able to supply the amenities needed to attract and retain the patronage of the well heeled. The town provided visitors with lavish hotels, parks, public squares, pleasure gardens, and convenient service alleys. Saratoga Springs also had a work force that was available for the five-month period per year that the spas were active. Corbett examines the history and participation of various ethnic groups in the resort’s service sector: African Americans, Irish, and Native Americans.
 
Corbett also stresses middle-class America’s emulation of the leisure habits of the English aristocracy. Even though these pursuits (hunting, fishing, horse racrting) were dominaterd by men, social rituals were dominated by women, and resorts that accommodated “public domesticity” thrived as the century progressed. The Making of American Resorts offers a window into shifting public values and the structure of commercial tourism.

 

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cover of The Mouse Who Played Football

The Mouse Who Played Football

Written by Brian Westbrook Sr. and Lesley Van Arsdall

Temple University Press, 2022

Some folks think Brian the mouse is too small. He may be a tough little fella, but they are not sure Brian has what it takes. The Mouse Who Played Football, by former Philadelphia Eagles running back Brian Westbrook Sr. and sports reporter Lesley Van Arsdall, shows how Brian the mouse proves everyone wrong with unyielding confidence that his small size can be his strength.

This charming children’s book, featuring appealing and dynamic illustrations by Mr. Tom, demonstrates how Brian the mouse overcomes what others see as a “big problem.” His determination—as well as speed and toughness on the gridiron—helps him become a star player in high school, college, and eventually, the MFL, the Mouse Football League.

The Mouse Who Played Football, based on Westbrook’s own experiences,is an inspiring story that encourages young readers to believe in themselves and make their unique differences their strengths.

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cover of The Northeast: A Fire Survey

The Northeast

A Fire Survey

Stephen J. Pyne

University of Arizona Press, 2019

Repeatedly, if paradoxically, the Northeast has led national developments in fire. Its intellectuals argued for model preserves in the Adirondacks and at Yellowstone, oversaw the first mapping of the American fire scene for the 1880 census, staffed the 1896 National Academy of Sciences forest commission that laid down guidelines for the national forests, and spearheaded legislation that allowed those reserves to expand by purchase. It trained the leaders who staffed those protected areas and produced most of America’s first environmentalists.

The Northeast has its roster of great fires, beginning with dark days in the late 18th century, followed by a chronicle of conflagrations continuing as late as 1903 and 1908, with a shocking after-tremor in 1947. It hosted the nation’s first forestry schools. It organized the first interstate (and international) fire compact. And it was the Northeast that pioneered the transition to the true Big Burn—industrial combustion—as America went from burning living landscapes to burning lithic ones.

In this new book in the To the Last Smoke series, renowned fire expert Stephen J. Pyne narrates this history and explains how fire is returning to a place not usually thought of in America’s fire scene. He examines what changes in climate and land use mean for wildfire, what fire ecology means for cultural landscapes, and what experiments are underway to reintroduce fire to habitats that need it. The region’s great fires have gone; its influence on the national scene has not.
The Northeast: A Fire Survey samples the historic and contemporary significance of the region and explains how it fits into a national cartography and narrative of fire.

Included in this volume:
How the region shaped America’s understanding and policy toward fire
How fire fits into the region today and what that means for the country overall
What changes in climate, land use, and institutions may mean for northeastern fire, both wild and tame

 
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cover of The Other Jersey Shore: Life on the Delaware River

The Other Jersey Shore

Life on the Delaware River

Michael Aaron Rockland

Rutgers University Press, 2024

River otters, black bears, and red foxes drink from its clear waters. Prickly pear cacti grow from the red shale cliffs that overlook it, while on the river near Bordentown lies the archeological remnants of a sprawling estate built by the former King of Spain, Napoleon’s brother, who lived there for almost twenty years. You might imagine this magical and majestic waterway is located in some faraway land. But in fact, it’s the backbone and lifeblood of the Garden State: the Delaware River.
 
The Other Jersey Shore takes readers on a personal tour of the New Jersey portion of the Delaware River and its surroundings. You will learn about the role that the river played in human history, including Washington’s four crossings of the Delaware during the Revolutionary War. And you will also learn about the ecological history of the river itself, once one of the most polluted waterways in the country and now one of the cleanest, providing drinking water for 17 million people. Michael Aaron Rockland, a long-time New Jersey resident, shows readers his very favorite spots along the Delaware, including the pristine waterfalls and wilderness in the Delaware Water Gap recreation area. Along the way, he shares engrossing stories and surprising facts about the river that literally defines western New Jersey. 

 
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cover of The Poconos: An Illustrated Natural History Guide

The Poconos

An Illustrated Natural History Guide

Carl S. Oplinger and Robert Halma

Rutgers University Press, 2006

The Poconos, a rich plateau nestled in northeastern Pennsylvania between the Delaware River and the Moosic Mountains, encompass a variety of alluring features. The perfect reference for amateur naturalists, outdoor enthusiasts, tourists, and others who wish to explore the area, this classic guide clearly explains the unique geographic characteristics, animal habits and habitats, climate, geology, and vegetation of the area.

The authors trace the region from its beginnings millions of years ago as part of a shallow sea, through the reshaping forces of great glaciers, to today’s roadways and turnpikes. This revised and expanded edition also includes brief profiles of individuals who played significant roles in the preservation or understanding of the area’s ecology. Chapters provide a general survey of the area, including its history and places to be explored and observed, information on forest types, wildlife, and aquatic habitats, updated facts and figures on animal populations, as well as new details on invasive species.

Throughout the book, numerous boxes direct readers to observatory points for specific birds, ecosystems, vegetation types, and geological features, while maps, tables, original pen-and-ink illustrations, and a select list of field guides and other references enhance the book’s appeal. An indispensable companion for visitors as well as residents, The Poconos is a must-read for everyone who wants to discover or better understand the beauty and natural history of this unique region.

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cover of The Scandal of Reform: The Grand Failures of New York's Political Crusaders and the Death of Nonpartisanship

The Scandal of Reform

The Grand Failures of New York's Political Crusaders and the Death of Nonpartisanship

Barry, Francis S

Rutgers University Press, 2009

No city in the world has seen more intense political battles between bosses and reformers than New York, which is home to America's original party machine, Tammany Hall, and its most spectacular urban corruption scandals. In these battles, reformers have always presented themselves as white knights, gallantly crusading for good government against the petty and corrupt hacks who are driven by self-interest. So it remains today. But, as The Scandal of Reform makes clear, this good versus evil storyline is mostly mythù an urban legend perpetuated by a reform community that has always been more selfrighteous than right and more interested in power than in democracy.

The Scandal of Reform pulls the curtain back on New York's reformers past and present, revealing the bonds they have always shared with the bosses they disdain, the policy failures they still refuse to recognize, and the transition they have made from nonpartisan outsiders to ideological insiders.

Francis S. Barry examines the evolution of political reform from the frontlines of New York City's recent reform wars. He offers an insider's account and analysis of the controversial 2003 referendum debate on nonpartisan elections, and he challenges reformersùand members of both partiesùto reconsider their faith in reforms that are no longer serving the public interest.

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cover of The Ultimate Guide to the Jersey Shore: Where to Eat, What to Do, and so Much More

The Ultimate Guide to the Jersey Shore

Where to Eat, What to Do, and so Much More

Peter Genovese

Rutgers University Press, 2023

The Jersey Shore, our most treasured asset, the envy of forty-nine other states, comes alive in this new book by the reporter and writer who knows New Jersey—and the Jersey Shore—best. Every conceivable topic—where to eat, where to stay, landmarks and attractions, what to do with the kids—is covered with the kind of inside information you just won’t find on tourism web sites or Facebook. All one hundred-plus Shore towns are included, from Sandy Hook to Cape May. There are hundreds of restaurant listings and recommendations. The book also contains engaging profiles and vignettes of the people and places that give the Shore its special character and charm. A throwback five-and-dime store on Long Beach Island. Banner pilots. Birders. Baby parades. And more. You want lists and rankings? The book is full of them—twenty best Shore towns, twenty-one secret spots down the Shore, twenty essential Jersey Shore experiences, fifty things we bet you didn’t know about the Shore, and so on. The book is the next best thing to being at the Shore; actually, it may be better than being there (think of those epic traffic jams on the Parkway, and all the money you’ll save on tolls, beach fees, and bad boardwalk pizza).
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cover of The Wildlife of New England: A Viewer's Guide

The Wildlife of New England

A Viewer's Guide

John S. Burk

University of New Hampshire Press, 2011

With practical guidance, helpful tips, and informative overviews of each location, The Wildlife of New England invites you to discover more than 80 wildlife-viewing areas around New England.

• Where are you most likely to spot a moose, black bear, or otter in the wild? 
• On what hilltop can you see thousands of migrating hawks in a single day? 
• Where might you see a basking shark, seal, or sea star?

Experienced nature writer and photographer John S. Burk answers these questions and more in this unique guidebook. Organized by state, each viewing location is discussed in detail, including its natural habitats and their unique features, characteristic species to watch for and when to see them, and recommended trails, auto roads, and driving directions. The Wildlife of New England also offers informative introductions to 60 of the region's iconic animals organized by their natural habitats and shown in stunning photographs, many in color.

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cover of Time and the Town: A Provincetown Chronicle

Time and the Town

A Provincetown Chronicle

Adele Heller

Rutgers University Press, 1991

Time and the Town was the last of Mary Heaton Vorse's books. It is about many things —a town and its people, the author, a certain kind of idyllic life. As much as anything else, it is the biography of the house Vorse bought in 1907 and lived in, off and on, for the next thirty-six years. The moods of the house mirrored her own. "Our houses," she wrote, "are our biographies, the stories of our defeats and victories."

Tinged with nostalgia and disenchantment, the book describes a Provincetown that has changed, a place on the verge of modernity. It is no longer a major fishing port. It has become a place whose business is tourism. Contrasting the old and the new, Vorse celebrates the enduring character of the town itself. She tells stories that are engaging and charming, droll and fabulous. The wrinkled Mrs. Mary Mooncusser who, though drunk and stark naked, conducts herself with great decorum when Vorse pays her a call, might have stepped out of the pages of Sherwood Anderson or Eudora Welty. In another anecdote, the townspeople scour the beaches for cases of booze dumped into the sea by rumrunners and are briefly inflated with the spirit of ancestral smugglers and buccaneers.

Vorse herself remained something of an outsider in Provincetown, despite her evident affection for the place and its inhabitants. They surely regarded her as simply another of those artist-intellectuals--many of whom appear in the pages of this book. The "off-Cape" outsiders put the town in the national limelight but took no interest in local matters. Vorse here ponders local matters exclusively, almost, one suspects, as a way of forgetting the more complex matters that occupied her--her agonies of parental guilt, her resentment of domestic obligations, her third marriage, her depressions and breakdowns. The town is in that sense beyond time.
 

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cover of Trail Running Eastern Massachusetts

Trail Running Eastern Massachusetts

Ben Kimball

University of Massachusetts Press, 2022

Eastern Massachusetts offers incredible trail-running opportunities, ranging from popular long-distance routes like the Bay Circuit Trail to lesser-known loops that run through the mountains and forests of the Quabbin watershed and Merrimack Valley region, and trails that pass alongside the shores of Cape Cod. All over the Bay State, there are trails suitable for runners of all levels waiting to be discovered and explored.

Avid trail runner Ben Kimball offers a selection of fifty-one of eastern Massachusetts’s most spectacular trail sites, including detailed trail descriptions, topographic maps, directions, parking information, safety tips, and much more. Both experienced and novice trail runners will find Trail Running Eastern Massachusetts to be an invaluable resource for exploring nature and getting a good workout, in the Boston area and beyond.

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cover of Trail Running Southern Vermont

Trail Running Southern Vermont

Ben Kimball

University of Massachusetts Press, 2024

The wild and rural landscape of southern Vermont offers a true bounty of great trail-running opportunities, from out­-and-­back (or point­to­point) runs on popular long-distance routes, such as segments of the Long Trail or Appalachian Trail, to quiet, little-known loops hidden away in the woods. This helpful guide is just the resource needed for trip planning or for a spontaneous run in a beautiful place.

Local expert trail runner Ben Kimball offers a range of suggested route options, sometimes even several at the same site, for runners of all skill levels. He also provides important practical information, such as the full distance of the suggested route; a difficulty rating; the trail style and type; the total ascent; and directions, along with a detailed description of the trail itself. There are also scannable codes for downloading trail maps to your smartphone. The trails included vary in difficulty and terrain type, and range from low elevations in the Connecticut River Valley to as high as 4,000 feet at Killington Peak in the Green Mountains. This indispensable book is the perfect companion for adventurous runners and hikers interested in exploring southern Vermont.

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cover of Trail Running Western Massachusetts

Trail Running Western Massachusetts

Ben Kimball

University Press of New England, 2015

Ben Kimball, a long-time trail runner, provides profiles of fifty-one great trail runs in western Massachusetts. Geographically, this book covers the area between the Quabbin Reservoir and upstate New York, including the Pioneer Valley and Berkshire areas as well as portions of the Taconic Highlands. Elevations range from the lowlands of the Connecticut River and Housatonic River valleys to the state’s highest point at the top of Mount Greylock. The trails profiled represent a range of locations within the region as well as a range of difficulty levels and terrain types. There are options for everyone, from the beginner to the experienced trail runner looking for new options. Each run receives a two-page treatment that includes an informative trail description and a trail map, along with a scannable QR code to download each map to your smartphone. This book will appeal to the entire running community of Massachusetts and the surrounding region, including the Pioneer Valley along the Connecticut River, communities along the Housatonic River corridor in the Berkshires, the many running clubs in the Boston area, and seasonal vacationers.
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cover of Transit Talk: New York's Bus and Subway Workers Tell Their Stories

Transit Talk

New York's Bus and Subway Workers Tell Their Stories

Robert W. Snyder

Rutgers University Press, 1998

New York City may seem to be a place where everyone is a stranger, yet transit workers provide a human presence on a late-night bus or an empty subway platform. Few of us give any thought to these invisible workers-until something goes wrong. Transit Talk takes readers into the world of MTA New York City transit employees, as they describe their lives and work, from the most visible subway conductor to the seemingly invisible mechanic.

There are nearly 44,000 transit workers like those you will meet in Transit Talk , and every day they help five million of us travel to work, to school, to weddings, to funerals, to hospitals, to vacations. These workers labor daily on subway tracks inches from high-voltage powerlines, risking their lives for passengers they'U never know. The city can feel large and fragmented, but the transportation system and its workers create common threads in the lives of all New Yorkers, threads we take for granted.

Together, their stories create a human tableau of life and labor in the city within a city that is the MTA New York City Transit. Transit workers find satisfaction in fixing a damaged subway car, gain wisdom from mastering a dangerous workplace, nurse emotional wounds from tending to someone injured in an accident, battle frustration from difficulties with management, and express satisfaction when reflecting on a productive career. They tell of how years spent in the same shop create bonds between workers. They talk of the burden of laboring in a twenty-four-hour system with night shifts and weekend workdays that take them away from families. You'U hear painful tales of informing next-of-kin of a death on the tracks as well as joyous anecdotes of workers delivering a baby in a subway car.
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