Download or read book Central Park written by Andrew Blauner and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2012-04-24 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An anthology of literary luminaries on the world's most famous park.
Download or read book A Big Manhattan Year written by David Barrett and published by . This book was released on 2013-03-31 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is it like to spend nearly every day for a year trying to observe as many bird species as possible within the confines of Manhattan? In 2012 I did just that-it's called having a "big year"-and I was not the only one. In this book I tell how I learned to bird and how I went on to become a competitive birder. Then I give a detailed account of my 2012 battle with one of the nation's best, ornithologist Andrew Farnsworth, and others to have the biggest of big Manhattan years. You may be surprised that each year over 200 species of birds reside in or migrate through Manhattan. Observing and accurately identifying them poses many challenges. You need to know what they look like, what they sound like, and where and when they are likely to appear. Birding can be a leisurely walk in the park, or it can be something much more demanding. Manhattan is home to a number of talented and obsessive birders for whom birding is a test of brains, logistics, and physical stamina, requiring both an understanding of nature and a knack for technology. Those new to birding will learn along with me as I begin by exploring one of the world's premier birding locations, the Central Park Ramble. As my own knowledge and experience grow, I introduce the reader to a series of beautiful and rare birds to be found not only in Central Park but also in the many excellent but less well-known parks of Manhattan. Journey with me from the waters of New York Harbor, where Red-breasted Mergansers and Horned Grebes swim, to the top of Inwood Hill Park, where Black Vultures and Great Horned Owls fly.
Download or read book Before Central Park written by Sara Cedar Miller and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2022-06-28 with total page 568 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner - 2023 John Brinkerhoff Jackson Book Prize, UVA Center for Cultural Landscapes With more than eight hundred sprawling green acres in the middle of one of the world’s densest cities, Central Park is an urban masterpiece. Designed in the middle of the nineteenth century by the landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, it is a model for city parks worldwide. But before it became Central Park, the land was the site of farms, businesses, churches, wars, and burial grounds—and home to many different kinds of New Yorkers. This book is the authoritative account of the place that would become Central Park. From the first Dutch family to settle on the land through the political crusade to create America’s first major urban park, Sara Cedar Miller chronicles two and a half centuries of history. She tells the stories of Indigenous hunters, enslaved people and enslavers, American patriots and British loyalists, the Black landowners of Seneca Village, Irish pig farmers, tavern owners, Catholic sisters, Jewish protesters, and more. Miller unveils a British fortification and camp during the Revolutionary War, a suburban retreat from the yellow fever epidemics at the turn of the nineteenth century, and the properties that a group of free Black Americans used to secure their right to vote. Tales of political chicanery, real estate speculation, cons, and scams stand alongside democratic idealism, the striving of immigrants, and powerfully human lives. Before Central Park shows how much of the history of early America is still etched upon the landscapes of Central Park today.
Download or read book Central Park written by Andrew Blauner and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2012-04-24 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Central Park is perhaps the most well-trod and familiar green space in the county. It is both a refuge from the city and Manhattan's very heart; a respite from the urban grind and a hive of activity all its own. 843 carefully planned acres allow some 37 million visitors each year to come and get lost in a sense of nature. Unsurprisingly, the park also inspires a wealth of great writing, and here Andrew Blauner collects some of the finest fiction and nonfiction-- 20 pieces in all, with classics sprinkled among 13 new ones commissioned from great New York writers. Bill Buford spends a wild night in the park; Jonathan Safran Foer envisions it as a tiny, transplanted piece of a mythical Sixth Borough; and Marie Winn answers definitively Holden Caulfield's question of where the ducks go when the park's ponds freeze over. There are bird sightings and fish sightings; Jackie Kennedy and James Brown sightings; and pieces by Colson Whitehead, Paul Auster, and Francine Prose. This vibrant collection presents Central Park, in all its many-faceted glory, a 51-block swath of special magic.
Download or read book Turtle Diary written by Russell Hoban and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2013-06-11 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two lonely Londoners bond over a plan to free the sea turtles at the city zoo in this touching novel from a cult-favorite author who has drawn comparisons to J.D. Salinger and Kurt Vonnegut. A wise and touching classic that “crackles with witty detail, mordant intelligence and self-deprecating irony,” from the author of Riddley Walker (Time) Life in a city can be atomizing, isolating. And it certainly is for William G. and Neaera H., the strangers at the center of Russell Hoban’s surprisingly heartwarming novel Turtle Diary. William, a clerk at a used bookstore, lives in a rooming house after a divorce that has left him without home or family. Neaera is a successful writer of children’s books, who, in her own estimation, “looks like the sort of spinster who doesn’t keep cats and is not a vegetarian. Looks…like a man’s woman who hasn’t got a man.” Entirely unknown to each other, they are both drawn to the turtle tank at the London Zoo with “minds full of turtle thoughts,” wondering how the turtles might be freed. And then comes the day when Neaera walks into William’s bookstore, and together they form an unlikely partnership to make what seemed a crazy dream become a reality.
Download or read book Birds of Central Park written by and published by . This book was released on 2005-10 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vornberger's spectacular photography, interspersed with his comments about birds, the park, and photography, will appeal to all bird-watchers, nature lovers, photography aficionados, and visitors to New York's Central Park. Packaged inside the book is a removable foldout pocket guide.
Download or read book 100 Parks 5 000 Ideas written by Joe Yogerst and published by 5,000 Ideas. This book was released on 2019 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A guide to the best parks in the United States and Canada, including activity and accommodation information; information on nearby attractions; top ten lists; and information on local fare"--
Download or read book Wild New York written by Margaret Mittelbach and published by Crown Publishing Group (NY). This book was released on 1997 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Surprisingly New York City teems with hidden pockets of animal and plant life from peregrine falcons, snowy egrets, and diamondback terrapin to hallucinogenic mushrooms and carnivorous plants. This book is a beautifully illustrated celebration of the natural history and ecology of the city's five boroughs. full-color photo insert. 25 maps.
Download or read book The Park and the People written by Roy Rosenzweig and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 1992 with total page 642 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Delineate the politicians, business people, artists, immigrant laborers, and city dwellers who are the key players in the tale. In tracing the park's history, the writers also give us the history of New York. They explain how squabbles over politics, taxes, and real estate development shaped the park and describe the acrimonious debates over what a public park should look like, what facilities it should offer, and how it should accommodate the often incompatible.
Download or read book Beloved Beasts Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction written by Michelle Nijhuis and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2021-03-09 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Sierra Club's 2021 Rachel Carson Award One of Chicago Tribune's Ten Best Books of 2021 Named a Top Ten Best Science Book of 2021 by Booklist and Smithsonian Magazine "At once thoughtful and thought-provoking,” Beloved Beasts tells the story of the modern conservation movement through the lives and ideas of the people who built it, making “a crucial addition to the literature of our troubled time" (Elizabeth Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction). In the late nineteenth century, humans came at long last to a devastating realization: their rapidly industrializing and globalizing societies were driving scores of animal species to extinction. In Beloved Beasts, acclaimed science journalist Michelle Nijhuis traces the history of the movement to protect and conserve other forms of life. From early battles to save charismatic species such as the American bison and bald eagle to today’s global effort to defend life on a larger scale, Nijhuis’s “spirited and engaging” account documents “the changes of heart that changed history” (Dan Cryer, Boston Globe). With “urgency, passion, and wit” (Michael Berry, Christian Science Monitor), she describes the vital role of scientists and activists such as Aldo Leopold and Rachel Carson, reveals the origins of vital organizations like the Audubon Society and the World Wildlife Fund, explores current efforts to protect species such as the whooping crane and the black rhinoceros, and confronts the darker side of modern conservation, long shadowed by racism and colonialism. As the destruction of other species continues and the effects of climate change wreak havoc on our world, Beloved Beasts charts the ways conservation is becoming a movement for the protection of all species including our own.
Download or read book On the Backs of Tortoises written by Elizabeth Hennessy and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-29 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An insightful exploration of the iconic Galápagos tortoises, and how their fate is inextricably linked to our own in a rapidly changing world. Finalist for the 2020 E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award, sponsored by PEN America Literary Awards The Galápagos archipelago is often viewed as a last foothold of pristine nature. For sixty years, conservationists have worked to restore this evolutionary Eden after centuries of exploitation at the hands of pirates, whalers, and island settlers. This book tells the story of the islands’ namesakes—the giant tortoises—as coveted food sources, objects of natural history, and famous icons of conservation and tourism. By doing so, it brings into stark relief the paradoxical, and impossible, goal of conserving species by trying to restore a past state of prehistoric evolution. The tortoises, Elizabeth Hennessy demonstrates, are not prehistoric, but rather microcosms whose stories show how deeply human and nonhuman life are entangled. In a world where evolution is thoroughly shaped by global history, Hennessy puts forward a vision for conservation based on reckoning with the past, rather than trying to erase it. “Fresh, insightful . . . Hennessy’s melding of human and natural history makes for thought-provoking reading.” —Booklist (starred review) “Gripping . . . well-researched and thought-provoking . . . whether you’re well-versed in the intricacies of conservation or have only just begun to long for a look at the tortoises yourself. On the Backs of Tortoises is a natural history that asks important questions, and challenges us to think about how best to answer them.” —Genevieve Valentine, NPR “Wonderfully interesting, informative, and engaging, as well as scholarly.” —Janet Browne, author of Charles Darwin: Voyaging and Charles Darwin: The Power of Place
Download or read book Turtles in Your Pocket written by Terry VanDeWalle and published by University of Iowa Press. This book was released on 2011-11-01 with total page 16 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the hefty alligator snapping turtle—the largest freshwater turtle in North America and the only turtle in the world with a predatory lure in its mouth—to the wood turtle, which uses “worm stomping” to catch earthworms, to the lovely ornate box turtle, which closes its shell completely for self-defense, the slow-but-sure turtle is an intriguing reptile. Terry VanDeWalle provides a complete description of each species, both male and female, along with distinguishing characteristics for fourteen subspecies, information about range and habitat, and natural history notes about behavior, hibernation, diet, and nesting. Two panels devoted to hatchlings provide short descriptions of the young of each species as well as photographs of some commonly seen young turtles.
Download or read book Turtles and Turtle Watching for the North Central States written by John J. Moriarty and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Heartbeats in the Muck written by John Waldman and published by Fordham Univ Press. This book was released on 2012-11-19 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Gives the reader a sense of lost New York, of the incredibly rich and biologically diverse ecosystem that once was the lower Hudson River estuary.” —Ted Steinberg, author of Gotham Unbound Heartbeats in the Muck traces the incredible arc of New York Harbor’s environmental history. Once a pristine estuary bristling with oysters and striped bass and visited by sharks, porpoises, and seals, the harbor has been marked by centuries of rampant industrialization and degradation of its natural environment. Garbage dumping, oil spills, sewage sludge, pesticides, heavy metals, poisonous PCBs, landfills, and dredging greatly diminished life in the harbor, in some places to nil. Now, forty years after the Clean Water Act began to resurrect New York Harbor, John Waldman delivers a new edition of his New York Society Library Award-winning book. Heartbeats in the Muck is a lively, accessible narrative of the animals, water quality, and habitats of the harbor. It includes captivating personal accounts of the author’s explorations of its farthest and most noteworthy reaches, treating readers to an intimate environmental tour of a shad camp near the George Washington Bridge, the Arthur Kill (home of the resurgent heron colonies), the Hackensack Meadowlands, the darkness under a giant Manhattan pier, and the famously polluted Gowanus Canal. A new epilogue details some of the remarkable changes that have come upon New York Harbor in recent years. “Full of humor and a picaresque joy in the almost absurd persistence of Gotham’s underwater ecosystems, Heartbeats should be read by every urbanite who dreams of a better relationship with nature.” —Paul Greenberg, New York Times-bestselling author of Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food
Download or read book Red Tails in Love written by Marie Winn and published by Vintage. This book was released on 1999-03-30 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Updated Edition—Ten Years Later The scene of this enchanting (and true) story is the Ramble, an unknown wilderness deep in the heart of New York's fabled Central Park. There an odd and amiable band of nature lovers devote themselves to observing and protecting the park's rich wildlife. When a pair of red-tailed hawks builds a nest atop a Fifth Avenue apartment house across the street from the model-boat pond, Marie Winn and her fellow "Regulars" are soon transformed into obsessed hawkwatchers. The hilarious and occasionally heartbreaking saga of Pale Male and his mate as they struggle to raise a family in their unprecedented nest site, and the affectionate portrait of the humans who fall under their spell will delight and inspire readers for years to come.
Download or read book Annual Report of the Board of Commissioners of the Central Park written by New York (N.Y.). Board of Commissioners of the Central Park and published by . This book was released on 1870 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Falconer of Central Park written by Donald Knowler and published by Bantam. This book was released on 1986 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
