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LaGuardia Airport, named for the mayor of New York in the mid 1930s is one of America's busiest airports and has undergone great change throughout the years.

Constructed closer to Manhattan than the commercially unsuccessful Floyd Bennett Field, LaGuardia Airport was conceived in the mid-1930s as New York City mayor Fiorello LaGuardia realized the need for a great airport for one of the world's great cities. Originally known as New York Municipal Airport, the popular airport soon had its name changed to recognize LaGuardia's enormous contribution to the project. At the time of its opening in 1939, it was the largest and most advanced commercial airport in the world with terminals considered art deco masterpieces. Although a very large airport for the era in which it was built, by the late 1940s it was the world's busiest airport and clearly too small for the increasing amount of air traffic. Through the years its runways were lengthened and facilities were improved to handle larger and faster aircraft. Still one of America's busiest airports, LaGuardia has witnessed the steady progress of American commercial aviation, from flying boats to jetliners.

First inhabited by the Mohicans and settled before 1651, Kinderhook, New York, has an intriguing historical past. Today, Kinderhook's celebrated art galleries and restaurants attract visitors and locals alike.

While the town has ties to the American Revolution and was home to America's eighth president, Martin Van Buren, Kinderhook is most known for being the origin of America's first ghost story, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." The story's main character, Ichabod Crane, was based on Washington Irving's close friend Jesse Merwin, a teacher who moved to Kinderhook in 1808. Due to the story's success and its terrifying icon, the Headless Horseman, Kinderhook and the Hudson Valley have evolved from farmland and sleepy folklore to an area full of cultural interest.

In April 1775, a small band of men set out from Hartford and traveled swiftly north toward the shore of Lake Champlain, recruiting men to their expedition along the way.

Within only a few days, this loyal group of volunteers arrived in Vermont and, joining forces with Ethan Allen and his legendary Green Mountain Boys, launched a daring attack to capture more than one hundred cannons stored at Fort Ticonderoga. In this comprehensive look at ""America's First Victory,"" Richard Smith traces the Patriots' route from Connecticut, through the towns of western Massachusetts and the Berkshire hills and north to Bennington, Vermont, and Lake Champlain. He chronicles the rival expedition led by Benedict Arnold, his confrontation with Allen and the surprise attack that changed the course of the American Revolution.

  A tiny hamlet on the Hudson River, Garrison has deep roots in our nation's history.

Author George Carroll Whipple III has compiled beautiful images of this tiny hamlet and made efforts toward restoring to its former grandeur the iconic 1881 Castle Rock, the estate of William Henry Osborn, a visibly prominent and renowned landmark for all who reside in or visit Garrison. Many wealthy New Yorkers such as William Henry Osborn, Edwards Pierrepont, and Hamilton Fish built their impressive summer estates here and many of those manors still stand today.

America's Only Shelter Established for Holocaust Refugees

During the height of the second World War, at the order of President Roosevelt, Fort Ontario in Oswego, New York housed 982 refugees, rescued from the horrors of the Holocaust. The community of Oswego answered the call of service and opened its arms to the survivors.

Oswegonian and WWII veteran Joseph Spereno's connection with refugee Jake Sylber helped launch his tailoring business that was a fixture in the city for more than 20 years. Then high school Principal Ralph Faust was among local educators who fought to allow the refugee children into Oswego schools, forging connections with those young people who went on to distinguished careers. Local Boy Scout leader Harold Clark created a troop for refugee children to share in the American experience of scouting.

Author Ann Callaghan Allen presents the harrowing narrative of how Oswego gave shelter to hundreds of Holocaust survivors.

Discover the spooky history of New York's central region

From the edge of the Adirondacks, to the heart of Syracuse and everything in between, central New York boasts some of the most haunted history in the state. Utica, Rome and Cazenovia all have historic tales of ghostly moments and unexplained aparations. Join author Dennis Webster as he reveals the hidden haunted history of central New York.

200 images from the archives of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy and the National Park Service that tell the history of the Appalachian Trail in NY, NJ and CT.

Crossing through 14 states from Maine to Georgia, the Appalachian Trail enters New Jersey through the Delaware Water Gap, crosses New York's Hudson River, and rises over Connecticut's Lion's Head. The area is considered by some to be the pathways birthplace, for in 1923, just two years after Benton MacKaye originally proposed the trail, the first few miles specifically constructed for the Appalachian Trail were built by volunteers in New York's Harriman and Bear Mountain State Parks. These photographs and the corresponding narrative present a historical perspective on what it took to create the trail, including the thousands of volunteers and the arduous tasks they performed, those who lived along the trail before and during its creation, the many people who have enjoyed the trail through the years, and the original routes that are no longer part of the present-day Appalachian Trail.

Chronicling the story of New York's beloved Rockaway Beach community and the efforts to recapture the magical success from an earlier era.

The American frontier did not just consist of a prairie--it also included marshes and windswept sand dunes. When the earliest settlers arrived at Rockaway Beach on steamships in the mid-1800s, it was a narrow strip of land packed with ponds and covered with dunes. Within 30 years, the community had grown into a wildly popular resort served by a thriving rail line. Amusement parks, hotels, taverns, and dance halls abounded, as did bungalow courts and open-air tent colonies. In the 1960s, the area was disrupted by urban development efforts and transportation infrastructure had declined.

Today, Rockaway Beach is being rediscovered by a new generation of visitors and entrepreneurs as longtime residents work simultaneously to reinvigorate it.

A fascinating part of the melting pot city, current day Jackson Heights in Queens, New York, the neighborhood formerly known as "Trains Meadow", is shared in images and history of the area from rural farmland to a cultural and economic center in New York.

At the turn of the 20th century, the neighborhood known as Jackson Heights was originally called Trains Meadow, a sprawling area covered by acres of farmland and rolling hills. Its only inhabitants were homesteaders who lived in their ancient wood-framed dwellings with spreads occupied by barns, horse stables, cabbage patches, and beehives. Overgrowing populations in Manhattan and Brooklyn led developers to Queens County to transform that landscape into Jackson Heights. Headed by Edward Archibald MacDougall, the ambitious Queensboro Corporation spent nearly $4 million buying properties, molding roads, and constructing buildings of great architectural merit. Jackson Heights provides an in-depth look at the history of America's first garden apartment community with the use of never-before-seen photographs culled from local archives and private collections. Images featured show the neighborhood's progression from rural farmland to the highly populated economic center it is today with memorable businesses like Jahn's Ice Cream Parlor and the cultural splendor along Thirty-seventh Avenue and Eighty-second Street.

Author David M. Griffin uncovers the lost history and harrowing stories of Long Island's British forts.

When the Revolutionary War broke out and New York City had fallen in 1776, the forces of the king of Great Britain developed a network of forts along the length of Long Island to defend the New York area and create a front to Patriot forces across the Sound in Connecticut. Fort Franklin on Lloyd's Neck became a refugee camp for Loyalists and saw frequent rebel attacks. In Huntington, a sacred burial ground was desecrated, and Fort Golgotha was erected in its place, using tombstones as baking hearths. In Setauket along the northern shore, the Presbyterian church was commandeered and made the central fortified structure of the town.

For more than five centuries, the waterways surrounding Long Island have profoundly shaped its history.

Familiar subjects of lighthouses, shipwrecks and whaling are found alongside oft-forgotten oddities such as Pan-American flying boats landing in Manhasset Bay in the early days of transatlantic flight. From the British blockade and skirmishes during the American Revolution to the sinking of merchant vessels by Germany in World War II, the sea brought wars to these shores. By the later part of the 20th century, Gold Coast millionaires commuted in high-speed yachts to Manhattan offices as the island's wealth grew. Historian Bill Bleyer reveals Long Island's nautical bonds from the Native Americans to current efforts to preserve the region's maritime heritage.

Discover how Williamsburg came to be one of New York's trendiest neighborhoods.

There is no New York neighborhood that boasts a richer history or more exciting present than Williamsburg. At first a quiet waterside community, Williamsburg briefly became a wealthy suburb of Manhattan in the middle of the nineteenth century. Heavy industrialization and a tidal wave of immigrants later turned Williamsburg into New York's poorest, most crowded quarter. With images drawn chiefly from the rich photographic collection of the Brooklyn Historical Society, Williamsburg illustrates the neighborhood's transformation from one of New York's most impoverished and least fashionable neighborhoods to a modern-day example of the city's capacity for self-renewal.

While passing through Newburgh Bay in 1609, explorer Henry Hudson's shipmate noted that the locale would be ideal for a village.

True to his prediction, some 200 years later Newburgh was incorporated as a village and has since become the Queen City of the Hudson. It is a city of historical reputation. Here, Gen. George Washington awarded the first Purple Heart and wrote his famous letter refusing to become a king. The Newburgh site known today as Washington'sHeadquarters is America's first historic preservationbuilding--the 1750 Hasbrouck House. Newburgh provides a glimpse into the city's past, with chapters that tell the story of a city of industry and innovation. Newburgh had telephone service as early as 1879 and was the second city to have a street illumined by an electric light bulb. Its East End contains the largest historic district in the state, covering a total of 445 acres from the Hudson riverfront westward. Within the district are rare examples of Greek Revival, Federal, Italianate, and Second Empire designs..

Sharing its name with a notorious ancient city, Babylon village has been the home harbor of Long Island baymen, a post-World War II suburban boomtown, and the birthplace of the nation's first professional black baseball team.

The modern village is well known for its picturesque Argyle Park and flourishing downtown, but it was once revered as a vacation resort destination for those near and far. The community has evolved from decades of residents, visitors, and experiences that have contributed to and created the history of Babylon village, one of the oldest established communities on the South Shore of Long Island.

Follow the history of New York's Long Beach from abandoned barrier island to bustling City By the Sea.

In 1906, Sen. William H. Reynolds purchased an abandoned barrier island along the south shore of Long Island and vowed to turn it into a great city. What is now Long Beach, the "City by the Sea," soon drew visitors who came for its summer resorts, boardwalk, dance pavilions, casino, and luxury hotels. Two world wars, Prohibition, and easy railroad access turned summer residences into year-long homes for thousands eager to live by the seaside and raise families in what has been known as "America's Healthiest City." The images of Long Beach reflect the diversity of the city's architecture, culture, religions, and unique neighborhoods. Photographs show the storied inhabitants and bungalows of the West End, water-lined homes of the canals, the 2.1-mile boardwalk, and long white sand beach.

Brooklyn, or "Bruculinu," as many Italians affectionately pronounced it, is where Italian values, culture, and dreams thrived.

In an era when over four million Italians found their way to America, the first significant influx came during the 1880s, primarily from rural peasant communities fleeing poverty and overpopulation. Although Italians in South Brooklyn have been traced back as far as the 1820s, the 1855 New York Census did not list any Italian natives in Brooklyn; however, by 1890, there were 9,563 Italians residing in the borough. By 1900, Brooklyn's Italian population was second only to Manhattan. Although the last notable wave of Italian immigration ended in the 1960s, Italian remains one of the six prevalent foreign languages in New York according to a 2007 census estimate. This work serves as a time capsule to remind us of the contributions and influences these immigrants have offered to the community.