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When Buffalo was incorporated as a city, the East Side represented a vast forested area and farmland that would one day be booming with industry.

By 1832, the beginnings of the major arterials of Genesee, Sycamore, Broadway, William, Clinton, and Seneca were there. These streets were laid out in 1826 and represented the seeds of the East Side's explosive growth. The development of railroads and the Buffalo Belt Line, constructed in 1883, created a semicircle pattern that outlined the East Side. Industries began sprouting up, eager to use their proximity to the belt line to transport wares all over the country. Immigrants from Germany, Poland, and Ireland, along with African Americans from northern and southern states, began establishing their lives around these industries. Access to land, water, roads, and rail lines and eager immigrants and natives looking for work led to the development of Buffalo's East Side industry, an immensely diverse industrial base and workforce.

With timeless images and a thoroughly researched and informative text, Patchogue is sure to be enjoyed by young and old, resident and visitor alike

As a continuation of the first volume, Patchogue Volume II returns to the beginning of the century to explore the town's development as a business center for the eastern region of Long Island and to provide another fascinating glimpse into the history of Patchogue and the lives of its residents. Patchogue Volume II serves as a legacy for future generations and a valuable tool in teaching the history of the town.

Picturesque Richmond Hill evolved after the Civil War on land where orchards once blossomed and cattle once grazed.

Nestled in the shadow of New York City, it is one of the city's first planned communities. The Victorian era saw the construction of Queen Anne-style mansions, and the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1883 brought expansion and increased traffic. Soon, newspapers began boasting about the many parks, grassy lawns, tasteful homes, and proud residents heralding a promising future. Richmond Hill contains more than two hundred vintage photographs to illustrate the unique history of the community. The oldest eatery in Queens, the Hofbrau Restaurant, was the favorite hangout of Mae West, Babe Ruth, and many others. Baseball great Phil Rizzuto made Richmond Hill his home, as did the Marx Brothers, author Amelia Edith Barr, and photojournalist Jacob Riis. Important political events took place in Richmond Hill, such as the newly rediscovered address made in 1903 by Pres. Theodore Roosevelt, as well as cultural milestones, such as the composition of ""When Irish Eyes Are Smiling"" at the Hofbrau Restaurant. Richmond Hill includes these and countless other stories that make up its rich, unique history.

Freedomland opened on June 19, 1960, in the Baychester section of the Bronx, New York. Historically themed attractions and costumed cast members were located throughout the seven sections.

Designed by Marco Engineering of Los Angeles for International Recreation Corporation, it was the third and largest innovative theme park built across America to mimic Disneyland. Constructed in the shape of the United States and presenting 200 years of American history, Freedomland was intended to be both exciting and educational. In addition, Freedomland offered national and local stars, big bands, and daily entertainment events. Professional character actors also worked throughout the park. Through photographs, Freedomland: 1960-1964 takes a tour of all seven sections of Freedomland and more. Although it was open for just five seasons, the park's guests and cast members were fortunate to have their very own "Disneyland of the East."

Since 1973, the Latin/Greek Institute (LGI) at the City University of New York has trained thousands of students in the classical languages. After 50 days of highly choreographed study, graduates of the Institute’s basic Latin and Greek programs—who enter with little or no prior knowledge—are able to engage in advanced reading courses and/or sit for graduate language exams. This is a remarkable feat made possible by a unique curricular model developed by the Institute’s visionary founder, Dr. Floyd L. Moreland. A summer at the LGI is almost impossible to describe; it is as much an experience as a program of study. Largely assembled from the archives of Brooklyn College, this book tells the story of the Latin/Greek Institute from its prehistory to its 50th anniversary and includes a visual history of its academics, dramatis personae, and an array of customs and traditions that have come to define this unique academic enterprise.

Lucas G. Rubin is a two-time alumnus of the Latin/Greek Institute, of which he became director in 2020. He holds a doctorate in classics from the State University of New York at Buffalo, an accomplishment made possible only by his summers spent at the Institute.

Long known for its Dutch heritage associated with windmills, tulip festivals, and distinct surnames, there is more to share about the town of Clymer. Traveling country roads through the rolling hills of southern Chautauqua County, a fertile valley with a village at the center that features a lone flashing red traffic light can be found. Established in 1821, Clymer has a rich history and a proud tradition of both individual and community accomplishment. Self-reliance and an entrepreneurial spirit led to the creation of public utilities, flourishing businesses, and schools that educated future professionals and farmers alike. Its small-town charm remains today, with an amazing one-stop general store, an all-you-could-need hardware store, and a widely known and popular restaurant with delicious sweet rolls.

As a retired teacher who grew up in Clymer, Rod Beckerink shares photographs and stories that act like individual pieces of a puzzle that, when put together, give a better understanding of what shaped the Clymer of today. With images primarily collected from the Clymer Area Historical Society, readers can take a trip down the nostalgic memory lane of Clymer’s past to catch a glimpse of the people, places, and events of the area’s interesting history.

The Town of Olive has long been a sought-after place known for its beauty and natural resources. From the late 1600s, pioneers explored the area and established homes in the majestic Blue Hills and along the Esopus River. These early pioneers made a living in agriculture, tanneries, and mills. Later, when visitors wanted to escape the heat of New York City, residents hosted boarders, and a booming industry was born. The community drastically changed in the early 1900s, when New York City came not just to visit but to look for a new source of water. This book offers a glimpse at how the Town of Olive began and how it has been affected by its proximity to the Esopus River through tourism and by industry. These images transport readers from the early 1700s to the mid-1900s and encapsulate how the various citizens of the Town of Olive through the years earned a living and spent their time and leisure. 

Melissa McHugh is an educator, a businesswoman, an archivist, and the director for the Olive Free Library in West Shokan, New York. She tells the story of the Town of Olive through photographs, many of which are from her curated exhibit about the history of the Ashokan Reservoir. 

Discover the history of the development of Long Island and its intimate relationship with New York City. /

Beginning in the Roaring Twenties, Wall Street money looked eastward to Nassau and Suffolk counties looking generate wealth from a land boom. After the Great Depression and World War II, Long Island was the site of the creation of the quintessential postwar American suburb, Levittown. Levittown and its spinoff suburban communities served as a primary symbol of the American dream through affordable home ownership for the predominately White middle class and established a core attribute of the national mythology. Starting in the 1960s, the dream began to dissolve, as the postwar economic engine ran out of steam and Long Island became as much urban as suburban. Author Lawrence R. Samuel charts how the island evolved over the decades and largely detached itself from New York City to become a self-sustaining entity with its own challenges, exclusions and triumphs.

Discover the Black pioneers who shaped St. Lawrence County through grit and determination.

From its origins as part of New France through the Civil War and eventual industrialization of the region, St. Lawrence County has been shapped by all too often overlooked Black families and individuals. Author Bryan S. Thompson reveals the history of the African American community in New York's North Country.

Vintage images document the historical transformations of Crown Heights and Weeksville.

The communities of Crown Heights and Weeksville are historically significant Brooklyn neighborhoods with foundations that trace back to New York's early founding. Revolutionary War skirmishes took place there, and following the emancipation of slaves in 1827, Weeksville became the site of one of New York's earliest independent African American townships. The hills of Brooklyn's Green Mountains hindered early settlement, and as a result a plethora of community institutions instead abounded in this far-flung outpost, including a penitentiary, hospitals, almshouses, old-age homes, convents, and monasteries. Traces of some of these early structures still remain. Using vintage images, Crown Heights and Weeksville chronicles the dynamic evolution of this area from rural township to the desirable center of culture, urban convenience, and architectural beauty.

The Erie Canal was completed in 1825 and became the backbone of an economic and cultural explosion that defined the image of New York.

The canal's development spurred successful industry and a booming economy, sparking massive urban growth in an area that was previously virtually unexplored wilderness. People poured west into this new space, drawn by the ability to ship goods along the canal to the Hudson River, New York City, and the world beyond. Erie Canal is a compilation of 200 vintage images from the Erie Canal Museum's documentary collection of New York's canal system. Vintage postcards depict life and industry along the canal, including not only the Erie itself but also the lateral and feeder canals that completed the state-wide system.

Around Bronxville brings to life more than one hundred years of carefully planned community and architectural development, including fine homes, apartments, houses of worship, and the once famous Hotel Gramatan that was demolished in 1972.

By the time the railroad arrived in 1844, the small rural community of Underhill's Crossing--soon to be renamed Bronxville--was already attracting prominent New York City families. Some came seeking permanent homes; others a summer retreat. Half a century later, believing that the future of their charming hamlet would be best served by organizing as a village, a handful of local taxpayers voted to incorporate. This community along the New York and Harlem Railroad, 15 miles from New York City, was about to become one of the most desirable residential suburbs in the metropolitan area. The book offers a visual tour of Bronxville's early ""downtown""; William Van Duzer Lawrence's art colony, Lawrence Park; and neighboring Lawrence Park West, the home of Sarah Lawrence College. Over 200 photographs, combined with explanatory text, recapture the ambiance of people, places, and events of a past era and offer a glimpse into the private lives of some of the community's more notable residents, such as Elizabeth Custer, widow of General Custer, and the families of Jerome Kern and Joseph P. Kennedy.

Around Central Islip focuses on this diverse and unique community's history.

Around Central Islip focuses on a modern renaissance village that evolved through numerous and diverse cultures. It was a small English settlement of the 1800s when Come to Central Islip, Good Work, Good Pay was advertised in the newspapers in Ireland. This brought an influx of settlers from nearly every county in Ireland. The area became known as Little Ireland in America. At the turn of the century, Central Islip housed one of the largest psychiatric centers in the country. Village life centered around this establishment for many decades. Decentralization of the hospital in 1955 resulted in the abandonment of numerous buildings with a degenerative effect on the village; blighted neighborhoods became commonplace. The transformation brought about by the arrival of the New York Institute of Technology resulted in the community's revitalization and beautification. Today, Central Islip is a vibrant and dynamic community.

Join authors George and Carol Reed as they recount the history of Fort Ontario through vintage images in this pictorial history.

In the earliest days when lakes, streams, and rivers served as highways through the wilderness, the nation that ruled the mouth of the Oswego River dominated North America. The convergence of the Oswego and Lake Ontario was a key point on the most navigable water route from the east into the interior of the continent. It was there that Fort Ontario was built. Just as quickly, however, the fort was destroyed, as competing armies seized control of this valuable point. Time after time the fort was rebuilt, and over the years it acquired a history as unique as its location. Fort Ontario: Guardian of the North is the first history of this remarkable and resilient fort, credited with being the oldest continuously garrisoned post in the United States. The book chronicles the many transformations of Fort Ontario from the time it was built in 1755 up to its present-day status as a New York State Historic Site. With paintings, maps, photographs, and informative text, the book brings back the fort's years as a company post, its World War I role as a major army hospital, and its World War II years as a shelter for Jews fleeing the Holocaust--the only wartime refugee shelter in the history of the United States.

With carefully selected photographs and detailed text, Walden and Maybrook traces the history of the two villages from the Colonial era to the mid-nineteenth century. The book contains some two hundred images, many of which have never before been published. Highlighted are the hardworking individuals who helped the villages prosper-the knife makers, polishers, grinders, and hefters, the prominent businesspeople of Chesnin & Leis Clothing and Brook May coats, and the railroad personnel who worked at the roundhouse, the engine house, and the coaling trestle.

Chronicling the incomparable life of boxing and Saratoga Race Course legend John Morrissey.

John ""Old Smoke"" Morrissey was one of the most dynamic characters of his time. He went from a career as an undefeated bare-knuckle boxer, founded the Saratoga Race Course and eventually won elections to Congress and the New York State Senate. A poor, uneducated Irish immigrant, Morrissey became a leader in the Dead Rabbits street gang. He won fame as a fighter and fortune as the operator of a string of successful gambling houses.

Morrissey then took Saratoga Springs by storm, improbably resurrecting thoroughbred racing during the Civil War and opening his famous Club House, which was the most glamorous casino the country had ever seen. Author and National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame director of communications Brien Bouyea takes you on this fascinating journey and shows just how Morrissey did it all.

Tour the zoos and aquarium that came to be featured favorites in New York tourism and recreation.

Situated within the five boroughs of New York City are five zoos and one aquarium. New York City Zoos and Aquarium chronicles the establishment of the Central Park Zoo, the Bronx Zoo, the Prospect Park Zoo, the Queens Zoo, the Staten Island Zoo, and the New York Aquarium. Popular children's zoos are also featured. The city's first zoo opened in Central Park in the 1850s, while the newest zoo opened in Queens after the 1964 World's Fair. While each one of these facilities has many similarities, they all have their own unique attributes. All of the facilities are focused on education, conservation, and the care of the animals that now reside in natural habitats.

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.

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.

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.

New Scotland Township contains photographs dating from 1840 to 1980, including dozens of formerly unpublished ones. Both the photographs and captions contain an amazing amount of detail that creates a vivid account of town life over the course of more than a century.

The book celebrates the people, their homes and occupations, as well as the community's schools, churches, and means of transportation. It explores the area's extraordinary landforms, from the Helderberg Mountains, Thacher State Park, Clarksville caves, Onesquethaw Falls to the Vly, Normanskill, and Onesquethaw creeks. It highlights the only remaining carriage sheds in Albany County, where part of the famous Anti-Rent Wars occurred, and the remains of a structure called the Castle, where Bouck White became famous for his Bouckware pottery.

New York's Harlem Valley, with the last stops on the Metro-North train line from Manhattan, has an incredibly eclectic history for a predominantly agricultural region .

A Victorian utopian community claiming to see fairies settled in Wassaic, attracting Japanese samurai and remaking the townscape of Amenia. An early version of the “Borscht Belt” began on the shores of Lake Amenia, where a once-thriving resort community vanished along with the lake itself. Amidst a crisis of dwindling membership, the NAACP was brought together at major conferences held at Amenia’s Troutbeck estate, owned by Joel Spingarn, the organization’s first Jewish president. Young graduates from the Rhode Island School of design and other art schools launched the Wassaic Project, a festival and art residency using a converted agricultural grain elevator as their venue. 

Author Tonia Shoumatoff presents these and other fascinating stories from Life at the End of the Line in the Harlem Valley.

New York runs on coffee. Read of coffee's past in the city and how it wove its way into the everyday.

The coffee industry was made for New York: complex, diverse, fascinating and with plenty of attitude. Since arriving in the 1600s, coffee held patriotic significance during wartime, fueled industrial revolution and transformed the city's foodways. The New York Coffee Exchange opened tumultuously in the 1880s. Alice Foote MacDougall founded a 1920s coffeehouse empire. In the same decade, Brooklyn teenager William Black started Chock Full o'Nuts with $250 and a dream. Third wavers Ninth Street Espresso and Joe made the latest latte craze mainstream. Through stories, interviews and photographs, coffee professional and Tristate native Erin Meister shares Gotham's caffeinated past and explores the coffee-related reasons why the city never sleeps.

Shortly after settlement began along Chautauqua Lake, steamboats furnished transportation and the first hotel catered to visiting hunters and fishermen.

Families escaping the summers in the city soon followed to enjoy the cool, healthy air. Chautauqua Institution and Point Chautauqua both began as religious assembly grounds. Celoron Park, often called the ""Coney Island of the West,"" and later Midway Park provided entertainment for families and attracted thousands of visitors who traveled by trolley and steamboat in the summer. Local residents and visitors alike enjoyed the parks, picnic groves, and assorted resorts along the lake. A century later, fish are still caught, boats still ply the waters, and families continue to enjoy everything Chautauqua Lake has to offer.

Port Washington is located 17 miles east of Manhattan on Long Island's North Shore. Immigration, technology, economic changes, and geographical forces shaped Port Washington over the years.

Once known as the shellfish garden of New York City, it is known for its bounteous bays, yachting and boatbuilding, celebrity residents, and pioneering aviation activities. Its burgeoning aviation industry was led by the Guggenheims and Charles Lindbergh in the 1930s, and the literary and musical giants who lived here included John Philip Sousa, William Rose Benet, and Sinclair Lewis. During the war years in the 1940s, Grumman and the United States Navy set up crucial operations in Port Washington. An era of suburbanization and development soon followed, reflecting the prosperity of the 1950s and 1960s.

Pearl River was part of a royal land patent issued to two New York businessmen, Daniel Honan and Michael Hawdon.

Honan, the accountant general of New Amsterdam, and Hawdon, a friend of the infamous Captain Kidd. Immigrants later settled in areas they called Nauraushaun, Middletown, Pascack, Sickletown, Orangeville, and Muddy Brook. In the 1870s, Julius Braunsdorf permitted the New York & New Jersey Railroad to run an extension through his property, which gave his new sewing machine factory access to markets and materials. The factory would later be enhanced to produce the first newspaper-folding machines. In 1906, Dr. Ernst Lederle, a former New York health commissioner, began a laboratory to produce antitoxins and other medicines. With the success and growth of these inventors and their businesses, Pearl River became a nationally known company town. Since the opening of the Tappan Zee Bridge, it has evolved into a friendly, modern bedroom community of New York City and the second-largest hamlet in New York State.

From a small rural retreat to a center of industry and finally into protected wildlands, this is the story of the Adirondacks' Cranberry Lake.

Initially, the remote Cranberry Lake region attracted hunters and fishermen such as Reuben Wood, world-champion fly caster, as well as artists like Frederic Remington, writer Irving Bacheller, and Arts and Crafts movement philosopher Elbert Hubbard. Between 1886 and 1896, when railroads began to approach the lake, both industry and tourism flourished. Extractive industries like mining and lumbering coexisted with a lively trade catering to leisure travelers and recreationists, though the same industries depleted much of the lake's resources. Several generations later, the natural beauty and wilderness characteristic of the Cranberry Lake region has been restored, and outdoor recreation is still an enticing draw to the area, though the stumps of old trees still litter the land like pockmarks of history, never to fully heal.

Their history is richly illustrated and narrated in Hadley and Lake Luzerne. Inside are rare photographs of loggers on drives down the river, famous visitors at the Wayside Inn, early horse racing, and a big boulder that became part of a building known as the Beehive.

From images of a bustling city in the 1850s to daily life in the 1950s, this delightful visual history recalls the people, places, and events that shaped Auburn.

Around Auburnbrings to life the history of Auburn and the surrounding communities of Cayuga County over a century of change. In addition to photos of the industries that formed the heart of the community, and snapshots of a bygone era amidst the natural beauty of Owasco Lake, authors Peter Lloyd Jones and Stephanie Przybylek give us a concise and accessible history of the famous men and women of Auburn and the surrounding Cayuga County: Harriet Tubman, fearless abolitionist and leader of the Underground Railroad; Emily Howland, pioneering figure in the fight for women's suffrage; and Theodore Case, inventor of the first commercially successful method of recording sound film.