New Book Releases

The Long Island community of Westbury was once a small town farming neighborhood . While Brooklyn and other boroughs mushroomed into urban giants, the population of peaceful Westbury hovered at less than one thousand. Then the Wall Street tycoons arrived--and everything changed. In this new book, author Richard Panchyk narrates the dramatic transformation of this once-agricultural hamlet, founded in 1670 by Quakers. Little more than a country town until the first two decades of the twentieth century, Westbury changed overnight as Manhattan's financial titans embarked on a frenzied pace of building and development--mansions, resorts, even a racetrack and an airport--catapulting the community into modern times. Westbury was the site of one of the country's first auto races, the 1904 Vanderbilt Cup. Its train stop witnessed the nation's first ever train-car collision. And in 1927, Charles Lindbergh bedded down in Westbury before taking off on his flight into history. Let Panchyk whisk you through the region's occasionally contentious, frequently dramatic, and always entertaining growth and development in A History of Westbury, Long Island.

Calmly nestled among the glacial streams and hills of central New York, residents of Ithaca may find it hard to believe that their city began with a rocky start. Transient teamsters and salt barge workers gave the town a rowdy reputation in its pioneer days, and the fledgling village seemed doomed as the "most isolated place on the Eastern Seaboard." Over the course of the nineteenth century, Ithaca's character swung like a pendulum
from debauchery to temperance, from boisterous vagrancy to religious fervor and reform. Though the town was hit hard by the Depression of 1837 and periodically ravaged by fire and flood, Ithaca survived to become a lively and bustling community and an important center of education, technological
innovation and cultural vibrancy. In this comprehensive history, Carol Kammen shows exactly why Ithaca is known as the "Crown of Cayuga."

Looking out over the majestic waters of Oyster Bay, the village of Cove Neck has played an outsized role in the history of Long Island and the nation.

The size of this tiny village belies its significant history. Nestled inside the town of Oyster Bay on Long Island, Cove Neck is only one of thirty-five other villages and hamlets of Oyster Bay, but Cove Neck is arguably the most important. The village played a role in the early days of motion picture history as the location of James S. Blackton and his Vitagraph Studios while Theodore Roosevelt's Sagamore Hill was home to the federal government during the summers of his presidency and remained his cherished residence throughout his life. Even the colonial farm of Mary Cooper still stands in Cove Neck, the hardships of the village's agricultural past detailed in her diary and studied by succeeding generations, even today. Authors John E. Hammond and Elizabeth E. Roosevelt cover the surprising history of Oyster Bay's historic Cove Neck.

The first African Americans of Peekskill had no choice in making the Hudson Valley their home. What they did choose was what kind of home to make of it--choices that were to shape both their community and the course of American history. Meet the African American sharpshooter who helped swing the balance of the American Revolution, revisit a stop on the underground railroad and catch a glimpse of Paul Robeson through the tumult of the 1949 concert riots. Then follow John J. Curran beyond the headlines and behind the scenes as he seeks out the people whose quiet, consistent contributions were no less dynamic in bringing about social change.