New York

Pictorial history of the grand estates, lush landscapes, and lavish lifestyles of wealthy families like the Vanderbilts, Rogerses, Roosevelts, Dinsmores, and Millses, who made Hyde Park famous.

Hyde Park was established in 1821 as a simple and small town on the Hudson River. Its claim to fame, however, and what attracts people still to this day, are the grand estates, lush landscapes, and lavish lifestyles of some of those who lived there. Wealthy families like the Vanderbilts, Rogerses, Roosevelts, Dinsmores, and Millses built homes to match their place in society. Hyde Park was a perfect location because of its easy access to New York City, where culture and society could be found, while providing country living along the Hudson for the many outdoor pleasures the wealthy enjoyed. One part of this collection by former town historian Carney Rhinevault and current historian Shannon Butler shows the wealthy river families, whose houses were built by prominent architects and filled with treasures from abroad while others show the families who worked as coachmen, gardeners, and parlor maids who made the lifestyles of the rich possible.

David D. Morrison, retired Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) branch line manager and railroad historian, has compiled rare photographs to showcase the shops that power the LIRR, the busiest railroad in North America.

The LIRR provides passenger rail service from Midtown Manhattan to to the far ends of Long Island at Greenport and Montauk. A vast operation such as this requires a huge fleet of locomotives and cars. The reliability of the fleet rests mainly upon the shop maintenance facility. The Morris Park Shops, opened in 1889 and closed in the early 2000s, provided over a century of maintenance and repair service, allowing the LIRR to develop and expand through the years. The complexity of the shop facility, from the days of steam locomotives to multiple-unit electric cars and diesel locomotives, is a fascinating chapter in LIRR history.

In contrast to and predating Long Island's famous Gold Coast (the North Shore), communities along the Great South Bay were home to hundreds of less publicized, yet equally impressive, mansions and historic houses

These homes were once owned by prominent captains of industry, popular entertainment figures, and movers and shakers of the day, such as the Bourne, Cutting, Gardiner, Gulden, Gustivino, Guggenheim, Hollins, and Vanderbilt families. Long Island: Historic Houses of the South Shore explores the South Shore's famous resident personalities, including Schuyler Parsons, Fred Astaire, Anita Stewart, and Robert Pinkerton. The lifestyle of the South Shore is also portrayed, including activities like hunting and fishing as well as the famous beaches that served as tourist attractions.

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.

The acclaimed artist and architect shares a strolling, personal tour of a city that has become his creative muse and home away from home.

Over the years, Danish architect and artist Mikael Olrik has developed a special relationship with New York City, finding endless inspiration in the vibrant and ever-changing metropolis. In Walks in My New York, Olrik shares his fascinating perspective on New York life through a combination of watercolor, photography and text.

Olrik explores the city with the broad view of an architect, the specificity of an artist, the straight-forwardness of a photographer, and the companionable text of a diarist. He captures everything from street scenes of everyday life to pastoral views of Central Park and landmarks such as the Empire State Building and the Brooklyn Bridge. Small maps accompany each entry and act as a sort of ‘GPS’ in print.

Historic schoolhouses preserve Long Island’s story: its generations of people, their settlement patterns, and the growth of their country towns and villages into today’s suburban sprawl and legendary resort destinations.

Celebrated for their simple form and association with early American values, no other historic building type evokes such strong emotions as the schoolhouse. Hundreds were built across Long Island and many survive, either adapted to new uses or restored and open for public access. From the simplest, pre–Revolutionary War period “Town House” in East Hampton to the trendy, octagonal schoolhouses constructed in Brentwood and Yaphank in the 1850s, Long Island saw the greatest variety of these distinctive structures built anywhere. Responding to an 1812 New York State law requiring towns to lay out school districts within walking distance of its younger residents, many early population centers received schoolhouses by the 1820s. Even a handful of Long Island’s schoolhouses are associated with the great American poet Walt Whitman, who taught school as a young man in the 1830s and later shared his concerns about the teaching methods then in vogue. But by the end of the 1800s, one-room schoolhouses became outdated and no longer accommodated the growing population. Many were saved, however, and repurposed as sheds, workshops, and even seasonal dwellings.