New Book Releases

Plainview-Old Bethpage presents an intriguing story of two vibrant Long Island communities that share a colorful 300-year-old history.

They were once quaint farming communities that almost overnight found themselves facing seismic cultural changes. In just 10 years, from 1950 to 1960, the combined population of Plainview and Old Bethpage soared from 2,000 to over 33,000. Plainview-Old Bethpage presents a journey back in time to the Native Americans, the settlers who followed, the farmers who worked the land, and the thousands who came to make a better life for their families. Discover why every town surrounding Plainview-Old Bethpage has a railroad station but it does not. Read about the resident who raised a Confederate flag during the Civil War and drew the ire of his neighbors. Ride along with race car drivers as they hurtle along dirt roads at breakneck speed. Learn about the deadly brawl on Election Day in 1890, the infamous Plainview kidnapper who got the electric chair, and a local company's role in molding a national memorial to Vietnam veterans.

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.

On the east side of Midtown Manhattan, next to the United Nations, sits the towering apartment complex Tudor City.

An architectural masterpiece created by developer Fred F. French during the Roaring Twenties, Tudor City was the first residential skyscraper complex in the world. It brought middle-class lifestyle to center city. Tudor City has parks, shops and restaurants and even once had a mini-golf course. Developers and preservationists battled over the site in the 1970s and 1980s, with a notable cast of characters including Governor Nelson Rockefeller, Mayor John Lindsay and Representative Ed Koch. The city designated the area a historic district. Author and resident Lawrence R. Samuel charts the ninety-year history of New York’s Tudor City.

Visit historic Sag Harbor on Long Island, through whaling village to homes in the National Register and home to writers and artists.

A prosperous deepwater shipping port on the south shore of Long Island, Sag Harbor was in its heyday as a whaling village in the early 1800s. By 1850, whaling was unprofitable, petroleum had been discovered, and the 1849 Gold Rush led to an exodus. As Sag Harbor fell into economic decline, the arrival of the railroad helped reinvigorate it as a factory town, bringing Fahys Watchcase, Alvin Silver, Bliss torpedo testing, and Bulova, until those industries shuttered. The silver lining to Sag Harbor's boom and bust has been the preservation of its heritage. The grand homes of captains and whaleship owners, tradesmen's cottages, and factory houses were untouched for years, attracting a wave of artists, writers, and weekenders. This fine collection of 18th- and 19th-century homes and public buildings placed the village in the National Register of Historic Places, drawing tourists to walk in the footsteps of Native Americans, colonists, whalers, and resident-writers James Fenimore Cooper and John Steinbeck and to visit the village's war monuments and museums and charming Main Street.

Travel back to 20th century New York along the historic tracks of the Long Island Railroad through this stunning image collection.

Chartered on April 24, 1834, as a route from Brooklyn to Boston, the Long Island Rail Road commenced in 1836 with service between Brooklyn and Jamaica, New York. The railroad has linked Long Island and New York City through several periods of increasing immigration and population beginning in the 1880s. Farmers and fishermen have depended on the railroad for their livelihood, and every summer thousands of tourists flock to Long Island beaches on the Long Island Rail Road. It is still the nation's largest commuter railroad, transporting an average of over two hundred fifty thousand commuters daily. The Long Island Rail Road: 1925-1975 offers a behind-the-scenes look at freight and passenger activities and the people who worked on the railroad. These one-of-a-kind photographs depict structures no longer in use, such as towers, water tanks, and crossing shanties, as well as electric motive power and other facets of a working railroad.

In early twentieth-century New York, few could have imagined a train terminal as grandiose as Pennsylvania Station.

Sandhogs would battle the fiercest of nature to build tunnels linking Manhattan to New Jersey and Long Island. For decades, Penn Station was a center of elegance and pride. But the ensuing rise of the airplane and automobile began to diminish train travel. By the mid-1960s, the station was tragically destroyed. The loss inspired the birth of preservation laws in the city and the nation that would save other landmarks like Grand Central. Author Paul Kaplan recounts the trials and triumphs of New York's Penn Station.

A female Paul Revere, 16 year old Sybil Ludington's heroic actions helped the army win many battles in the Hudson Valley of New York. Read the fascinating story of her life and legacy.

The Revolutionary War in the Hudson Valley inspired the rise of heroes and heroines alike. On a rainy night in 1777, sixteen-year-old Sybil Ludington mounted her beloved horse and rode forty miles through enemy-infested Putnam County to warn her father's regiment of impending British raids. Riding twice the distance of Paul Revere and under more dire circumstances, her heroic efforts helped position the Continental army in subsequent battles. A widow at a young age, Sybil became a successful businesswoman in a male-dominated profession and lived in the region for her remaining years. Through family documents and correspondence, author Vincent T. Dacquino charts the incredible life and legacy of Sybil Ludington.

Few schools have a reverence for their hockey history as Cornell University. Perfect for fans of Cornell University, hockey, and New York sports history.

The tradition of Cornell University Hockeyis largely a winning one, punctuated by the only perfect season of the modern era, a 29-0 mark in the 1969-1970 season. Started on a frozen pond in 1900, Cornellhockey was revitalized in the late 1950s with the completion of the campus's first indoor facility, Lynah Rink. Since then, names like Ken Dryden, Ned Harkness, Lance Nethery, Joe Nieuwendyk, Daren Eliot, Mike Schafer, and David LeNeveu have won championship after championship.

Their stories are expertly recounted in Cornell University Hockeyby authors Adam Wodon, who has covered Cornell hockey since 1988, and Arthur Mintz, sports columnist for the Ithaca Times for seventeen years.

In more than 200 photographs, Troy Revisited reveals iconic street scenes, interiors, landmarks, businesses and more.

Troy was a vibrant and economically powerful city on the Hudson River during the first half of the 20th century. At night, the city would glow from the heat of the many iron foundries that were located in the south end. These factories employed thousands of Trojans who worked to make everything from cast-iron stoves to bells. The early 1900s were a time of greatness and prosperity for Troy's people and its products. With the growing population, an abundance of stores and retail establishments opened to supply residents with the items that were not being produced locally. The local economy enjoyed an unprecedented growth as a result.

Goshen, New York, home to the oldest continuously operating harness trace for trotting horses is visited in this history of the town.

Goshen, the county seat of Orange County, was originally part of the 1703 Wawayanda Patent. Located some 60 miles northwest of New York City and 16 miles west of the Hudson River, the village began to develop in 1714. Goshen traces this development, highlighting the evolution of Park Square, the lovely Victorian homes, the tree-lined streets, the business district, and especially Historic Track, the oldest continuously operating harness track in the United States, and the Trotting Horse Museum, containing the Hall of Fame of the Trotter.

Tuscarora is a sovereign nation in the Niagara region of upstate New York and a member of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.

The Tuscarora were the first native people to be dispossessed of their land during the colonization of the United States. The certainty of their future was at stake as they walked north, beginning in 1713, to join their Haudenosaunee relatives. Now, almost 300 years after this hardship, they are prospering as a people. Tuscarora Nation depicts their culture and traditions, the height of their agricultural success, the rich heritage of lacrosse, the unique fishing culture along the Niagara River, and their traditional government of chiefs and clan mothers.

In this engaging pictorial history, discover the relationship between the exposition and its host city of Buffalo, and the triumphs and tragedies it endured.

One of a series of popular turn-of-the-century international expositions, the Pan-American Exposition of 1901 emphasized Western Hemisphere production and trade. William McKinley on its grounds in September. The Pan-Am flaunted America's status as a leading international power after the victory from the 1898 Spanish-American War. In this engaging pictorial history, discover the relationship between the exposition and its host city of Buffalo, and the triumphs and tragedies it endured. Discover the booming Buffalo of 1900, with its links to midwestern agriculture and eastern markets. The city had abundant electric power, was home to several important industries, and had a wealthy and influential leadership. A logical venue for the exposition, Buffalo became home to a fair that paid tribute to the nation's industrial, agricultural, and commercial dominance. Along with Chicago in 1893 and other fairs that followed, the Pan-Am combined high-toned self-promotion in the formal exhibits with midway displays that made sport of other cultures and races. The exposition came to a shattering close with the assassination of Pres. Neither the fair nor the city fully recovered. Buffalo's Pan-American Exposition explores a unique time in American history. Historians, scholars, and residents alike will delight in this fascinating collection of images from Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society.