The History Press [new releases]

Central New York, a region renowned as one of the snowiest in the world, has a long and stormy relationship with its winters.

From the Lake Ontario port in Oswego to the busy streets of Syracuse and Utica, every community in the region has found themselves buried from brutal snowstorms.

Author Jim Fafaglia draws from personal memories, family diaries and newspaper accounts to craft a two-hundred year history of Central New York's whiteouts, blizzards and snowstorms.

Visit the long ago crime and dire deeds in the Hudson Valley of New York.

The Hudson Valley is drenched in history, culture and blood. In the fall of 1893, Lizzie Halliday left a trail of bodies in her wake, slaughtering two strangers and her husband before stabbing a nurse to death at the asylum housing her. A Jazz Age politician, tired of fighting with his overbearing wife, murdered her and buried the body under the front porch. In 1882, a cantankerous old miner, dubbed the ""Austerlitz Cannibal"" by the press, chopped up his partner before he himself swung from the end of a rope. Author Andrew Amelinckx dredges up the Hudson Valley's dark past, from Prohibition-era shootouts to unsolved murders, in eleven heart-pounding true stories.

Settled in the 1600s, Brooklyn Heights is one of New York's most historic neighborhoods.

Its strategic location overlooking the harbor proved instrumental during the Revolutionary War's Battle of Brooklyn. In the 1830s, steam ferries transformed it into America's first suburb, where abolitionism flourished and one of the largest Civil War Sanitary Fairs was held. Throughout the nineteenth century, wealthy philanthropists and entrepreneurs built high-styled Gothic Revival and Italianate homes and founded many landmark Brooklyn institutions. Though the neighborhood declined with the new century, it became a target of Robert Moses's urban renewal projects in the 1930s. Its designation as the city's first historic district saved Brooklyn Heights, and it has since blossomed into one of the city's most desirable neighborhoods.

Take a tour of Buffalo, NY's mobster and mafia history. Local mob expert reveals gangsters' stories, hangouts and more.

Buffalo has housed its fair share of thugs and mobsters. Besides common criminals and bank robbers, a powerful crime family headed by local boss Stefano Magaddino emerged in the 1920s. Close to Canada, Niagara Falls and Buffalo were perfect avenues through which to transport booze, and Magaddino and his Mafiosi maintained a stranglehold on the city until his death in 1974. Local mob expert Michael Rizzo takes a tour of Buffalo's mafia exploits everything from these brutal gangsters' favorite hangouts to secret underground tunnels to murder.

Unbeknownst to most of the city's inhabitants, a rural community of garbage workers once existed on a now-vanished island in New York City.

Barren Island was a swampy speck in Jamaica Bay where a motley group of new immigrants and African Americans quietly processed mountains of garbage and dead animals starting in the 1850s. They turned the waste into useful industrial products until their eviction by Robert Moses in 1936, all in the name of progress. Barren Islanders built businesses, fought fires, demanded a public school and worshipped at churches as they created a quintessentially American community from scratch. Author Miriam Sicherman tells the story of a Brooklyn neighborhood lost in the annals of New York City history.

Long Island's history is filled with fascinating firsts, magnificent mansions and captivating characters.

From Glenn Curtiss, the first pilot to fly a plane on the island, to Earle Ovington, who carried the country's first airmail, the area has been known as the cradle of aviation. Millionaire William K. Vanderbilt's Long Island Motor Parkway, remnants of which still remain, was the nation's first highway. The desolate ruins of an exiled Albanian king's estate lie in the midst of the woods of the Muttontown Preserve. Captain William Kidd, pirate chaser turned pirate, is rumored to have buried treasure on the island. Richard Panchyk reveals the rapidly vanishing traces of Long Island's intriguing history.

Washington's Harrowing Escape from the Hudson Valley

In October 1776 central Westchester witnessed a critical episode in the early campaign of George Washington’s ragtag Continental Army and its quest for American independence. Often overlooked as just an interval between the disastrous Battle of Brooklyn and victory at Trenton, the Battle of White Plains showcased Washington’s sly strategy of perseverance.  Poor decision making and ignorance of the area’s hilly terrain among British leadership gave the patriot army a chance to secure a path to safety despite being on the run and outmanned. Though British General Howe claimed victory, the battle’s lessons informed Washington’s cat and mouse strategy that ultimately brought success later in the war.  

Author Stephen Paul DeVillo presents just how close the American cause for independence came to being extinguished at the Battle of White Plains.

Nicknamed "Liquor Island," Long Island was rumrunner's paradise during Prohibition.

With its proximity to major markets and coastal communities for easy transit, Suffolk County was awash in illegal hooch. Smugglers bringing cases of booze from offshore often secretly hid product temporarily in local garages and sheds, leaving a bottle as a thank-you. Coded communication crisscrossed the county on shortwave radios arranging sales and logistics. Violence from criminal outfits disrupted previously quiet towns, as locals too often were swept up in dangerous unintentional engagements with bootleggers.

Pour one out and join author Amy Kasuga Folk as she recounts stories from Suffolk County's Prohibition era

Legends of LIC

Long Island City may be one of New York’s fastest growing neighborhoods, but it already has an incredible history within the Big Apple. DeWitt Clinton lived in a mansion off Newtown Creek and is credited with bringing the “Inland Empire” to the “Empire City” by spearheading the construction of the Erie canal, connecting America’s heartland to New York’s economic hub. William Steinway saw Astoria as the perfect blank canvas to build his groundbreaking “Steinway Settlement,” including a waterfront park, public bathhouse, housing, a family mansion and a new factory to build his world-renowned pianos. The neighborhood has been a center of innovation, with Chester Carlson’s lab as the site of the first photocopy. And the Sony company launched dozens of pioneering transistor-based products from Sunnyside’s Van Dam street.

Join the Greater Astoria Historical Society as they present historic tales from Long Island City.

"Shooting in Brooklyn is like opening a time capsule. Nothing has changed. Everything looks like it did in the eighties." -Freddie Prinze, Jr.

Discover the iconic films, legendary personalities and the locations for timeless big screen moments that took place in Brooklyn. From Saturday Night Fever to numerous Spike Lee Joints, readers can learn about Brooklyn's cinematic past or discover locations to visit today.

The Hudson Highlands launched revolutions of independence, industry and creativity, and have long enchanted artists and hikers with countless mysteries that still thrive in the area.

Leni-Lenape legend told of an ancient giant slumbering between Storm King and Breakneck Ridge. During the Revolution, George Washington saved the new nation from a military coup by donning glasses. The ghost of the twice-hanged pirate William Kidd returns to secluded caves and hamlets in the Highlands to guard his treasure. Professional storyteller Jonathan Kruk unveils a treasure of stories of the historic, mysterious and colorful Hudson Highlands.

Local storyteller Jonathan Kruk shares the mysterious lore of the Hudson Valley, best known among them Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow."

The story of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman is one of America's best known fables, but what other stories does the Hudson Valley hold? Imps cause mischief on the Hudson River, a white lady haunts Raven Rock, Major Andre's ghost seeks redemption and real headless Hessians search for their severed skulls. These mysterious and spooky tales from the region's past that inspired Irving and continues to captivate the imagination to this day.

New York's Finger Lakes region is filled with compelling characters, tragic disasters and fascinating mysteries.

Famed daredevil Sam Patch, known as the "Yankee Leaper," thrilled audiences at Niagara Falls but took his last jump into the Genesee River with his pet black bear, plummeting to his death. The first ever Memorial Day was celebrated in Waterloo in 1866 and inspired a nation to adopt the holiday. Seneca Lake claims its fair share of ships, including the Onondaga, which was blown up with dynamite as part of a spectacle to commemorate the sinking of the USS Maine. Author Patti Unvericht reveals the forgotten history of the Finger Lakes region.

Queens has a history filled with fascinating firsts, cool characters and ramshackle ruins. Poet Clement Clarke Moore was inspired by childhood memories of Elmhurst when he wrote the poem "'Twas the Night before Christmas."

From the nation's first modern highway to the first-ever transatlantic flight, the borough has long been at the forefront of modern transportation. The infamous William "Boss" Tweed once fled jail to a secret hideout in a Bayside hotel. The remains of the old Creedmoor Hospital complex in Queens Village are haunting, as are the eerie remnants of Fort Tilden in the Rockaways. Author Richard Panchyk reveals glimpses of the hidden history of Queens.

Champion Race Horses of the Empire State

From Saratoga to Belmont Park, New York hosts some of horse racing's most important races, but many of the most successful thoroughbreds of the past five decades also have called the state home. Say Florida Say seemed to only improve with age, winning thirty-three times throughout a seven-year career that made him a regional favorite in the 1990s. The first ever New York horse to win the Kentucky derby, Funny Cide, rose to national prominence in 2003, winning both the Derby and the Preakness in incredible fashion. The thoroughbred Audible shared owners with triple-crown winner Justify, and though embroiled in some controversy as a result, was also an elite race horse during a brief career.

Author Allan Carter highlights the stories behind the greatest New York thoroughbreds of the past half-century.

Discover the stories of these indomitable women who have steered the course of New York's history from the colonial era through today.

The significant events in New York State history are well known to educators, students and New Yorkers alike. But often, the role that women played in these events has been overlooked. In this book, members of the American Association of University Women in New York State have meticulously researched the lives and actions of some of New York's finest women. Some of the names are renowned, like the great emancipator Harriet Tubman, who settled in Auburn, and some are less so, such as Linda Tetor, who fought for the rights of senior citizens in Steuben County and throughout the state.

Relive the most unforgettable moments - even those that diehards have longed to forget - of the New York Mets.

Since their inception in 1962, the New York Mets have not traveled the straight and narrow path. These top 10 lists chart the many highs and lows over that journey - from World Series victories in 1969 and 1986 through an injury-shattered 2017 season. The team's passionate fans lovingly embrace the triumphs, like when Mike Piazza's post-9/11 home run lifted a devastated city, just as they endure the frustrations, caused by such culprits as Chipper Jones and Chase Utley. From the greatest left-handed pitchers to the worst trades to the best single-game hitting performances, author Brian Wright ranks the most unforgettable memories in the history of New York's inimitable baseball franchise.