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Book The Catskills

    Book Details:
  • Author : Stephen M. Silverman
  • Publisher : Knopf
  • Release : 2015-10-27
  • ISBN : 1101875887
  • Pages : 466 pages

Download or read book The Catskills written by Stephen M. Silverman and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2015-10-27 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Catskills (“Cat Creek” in Dutch), America’s original frontier, northwest of New York City, with its seven hundred thousand acres of forest land preserve and its five counties—Delaware, Greene, Sullivan, Ulster, Schoharie; America’s first great vacationland; the subject of the nineteenth-century Hudson River School paintings that captured the almost godlike majesty of the mountains and landscapes, the skies, waterfalls, pastures, cliffs . . . refuge and home to poets and gangsters, tycoons and politicians, preachers and outlaws, musicians and spiritualists, outcasts and rebels . . . Stephen Silverman and Raphael Silver tell of the turning points that made the Catskills so vital to the development of America: Henry Hudson’s first spotting the distant blue mountains in 1609; the New York State constitutional convention, resulting in New York’s own Declaration of Independence from Great Britain and its own constitution, causing the ire of the invading British army . . . the Catskills as a popular attraction in the 1800s, with the construction of the Catskill Mountain House and its rugged imitators that offered WASP guests “one-hundred percent restricted” accommodations (“Hebrews will knock vainly for admission”), a policy that remained until the Catskills became the curative for tubercular patients, sending real-estate prices plummeting and the WASP enclave on to richer pastures . . . Here are the gangsters (Jack “Legs” Diamond and Dutch Schultz, among them) who sought refuge in the Catskill Mountains, and the resorts that after World War II catered to upwardly mobile Jewish families, giving rise to hundreds of hotels inspired by Grossinger’s, the original “Disneyland with knishes”—the Concord, Brown’s Hotel, Kutsher’s Hotel, and others—in what became known as the Borscht Belt and Sour Cream Alps, with their headliners from movies and radio (Phil Silvers, Eddie Cantor, Milton Berle, et al.), and others who learned their trade there, among them Moss Hart (who got his start organizing summer theatricals), Sid Caesar, Lenny Bruce, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, and Joan Rivers. Here is a nineteenth-century America turning away from England for its literary and artistic inspiration, finding it instead in Washington Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle” and his childhood recollections (set in the Catskills) . . . in James Fenimore Cooper’s adventure-romances, which provided a pastoral history, describing the shift from a colonial to a nationalist mentality . . . and in the canvases of Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, Frederick Church, and others that caught the grandeur of the wilderness and that gave texture, color, and form to Irving’s and Cooper’s imaginings. Here are the entrepreneurs and financiers who saw the Catskills as a way to strike it rich, plundering the resources that had been likened to “creation,” the Catskills’ tanneries that supplied the boots and saddles for Union troops in the Civil War . . . and the bluestone quarries whose excavated rock became the curbs and streets of the fast-growing Eastern Seaboard. Here are the Catskills brought fully to life in all of their intensity, beauty, vastness, and lunacy.

Book The Catskill Mountain House

Download or read book The Catskill Mountain House written by Roland Van Zandt and published by Black Dome Press. This book was released on 1966 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Catskill Mountain House Trail Guide

Download or read book Catskill Mountain House Trail Guide written by Robert A. Gildersleeve and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: State-of-the-art hiking guide, complete with newly drawn maps and GPS coordinates, to America's first recreational mountain trails. These trails surrounded the Catskill Mountain House (est. 1824) on the northeastern escarpment of the Catskill Mountains and inspired America's Romantic-era painters & writers, including William Cullen Bryant, James Fenimore Cooper, Thomas Cole, Frederic Church and the other artists of the Hudson River School. Includes 19th-century maps and rare period photos, drawings and descriptions.

Book At Home in Hudson Valley

Download or read book At Home in Hudson Valley written by Allison Serrell and published by Chronicle Books. This book was released on 2005-05-05 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It has been called America's Loire Valley, the Napa Valley of the East, and the new Hamptons. Deemed by the US Congress "the landscape that defined America," New York's Hudson River Valley is a region rich in history, boasting exceptional architecture, celebrity residents, lush landscapes, and a burgeoning art and cultural scene. Each year, 50 million visitors flock to the counties along the river to escape the frenzy of city living and to rejuvenate in quiet, idyllic surroundings. Many stay and buy second homes, and many more dream about it. At Home in the Hudson Valley takes an intimate tour of 20 exceptional dwellings, including Karim Rashids Carl Koch Tech Built house in Croton on Hudson, an original Marcel Breuer home in Salt Point, and architect Peter Franck's celebrated residence with its breathtaking views of the Catskills. Magnificent color photographs (250 in all), an extensive resource list, and map of the region make this a gorgeous visual excursion and valuable resource for residents and tourists alike.

Book Rip Van Winkle  and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Download or read book Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow written by Washington Irving and published by Orient Blackswan. This book was released on 1963 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A man who sleeps for twenty years in the Catskill Mountains wakes to a much-changed world.

Book The Catskill Park

Download or read book The Catskill Park written by Norman James Van Valkenburgh and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Making Mountains

    Book Details:
  • Author : David Stradling
  • Publisher : University of Washington Press
  • Release : 2009-11-23
  • ISBN : 0295989890
  • Pages : 362 pages

Download or read book Making Mountains written by David Stradling and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2009-11-23 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For over two hundred years, the Catskill Mountains have been repeatedly and dramatically transformed by New York City. In Making Mountains, David Stradling shows the transformation of the Catskills landscape as a collaborative process, one in which local and urban hands, capital, and ideas have come together to reshape the mountains and the communities therein. This collaboration has had environmental, economic, and cultural consequences. Early on, the Catskills were an important source of natural resources. Later, when New York City needed to expand its water supply, engineers helped direct the city toward the Catskills, claiming that the mountains offered the purest and most cost-effective waters. By the 1960s, New York had created the great reservoir and aqueduct system in the mountains that now supplies the city with 90 percent of its water. The Catskills also served as a critical space in which the nation's ideas about nature evolved. Stradling describes the great influence writers and artists had upon urban residents - especially the painters of the Hudson River School, whose ideal landscapes created expectations about how rural America should appear. By the mid-1800s, urban residents had turned the Catskills into an important vacation ground, and by the late 1800s, the Catskills had become one of the premiere resort regions in the nation. In the mid-twentieth century, the older Catskill resort region was in steep decline, but the Jewish "Borscht Belt" in the southern Catskills was thriving. The automobile revitalized mountain tourism and residence, and increased the threat of suburbanization of the historic landscape. Throughout each of these significant incarnations, urban and rural residents worked in a rough collaboration, though not without conflict, to reshape the mountains and American ideas about rural landscapes and nature.

Book Explorer s Guide Hudson Valley   Catskill Mountains

Download or read book Explorer s Guide Hudson Valley Catskill Mountains written by Joanne Michaels and published by The Countryman Press. This book was released on 2009-05-04 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Details the attractions, historic sites, accommodations, restaurants, and outdoor activities of the Hudson Valley and the Catskill Mountains.

Book Explorer s Guide Hudson Valley   Catskill Mountains  Includes Saratoga Springs   Albany  Eighth Edition

Download or read book Explorer s Guide Hudson Valley Catskill Mountains Includes Saratoga Springs Albany Eighth Edition written by Joanne Michaels and published by The Countryman Press. This book was released on 2013-06-03 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The bestselling and most complete guide to the gorgeous Hudson Valley is back in a new, totally revised edition. Rich with historical and cultural attractions and natural beauty, the Hudson Valley has become a choice getaway. Local author Joanne Michaels guides you through its treasure trove of restaurants, cozy inns, galleries, antiques shops, and wineries, and to its many outdoor activities. Completely revised; from the most respected travel writer in the region.

Book Haunted Catskills

    Book Details:
  • Author : Lisa LaMonica
  • Publisher : Arcadia Publishing
  • Release : 2013-05-28
  • ISBN : 1625840896
  • Pages : 129 pages

Download or read book Haunted Catskills written by Lisa LaMonica and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2013-05-28 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discover the ghosts who wander these upstate New York mountains—includes photos! Washington Irving called the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York a “spellbound region”—and the ghosts that linger from more than four hundred years of history provide proof of Irving's intuition. In Hudson, Maggie Houghtaling’s ghost haunts the Register-Star building, where she was hanged in 1817 for murdering her child—a crime for which she was later cleared. The ghost of a young Native American girl haunts Claverack Creek, where she threw herself into the water when her father forbade her to be with the man she loved. In Greenport, Peter Hallenbeck was murdered by his nephews in his home, where his spirit still lingers. Discover these and other eerie tales of hauntings in the Catskill Mountains in this collection of fascinating stories and local lore.

Book Gardens of the Hudson Valley

Download or read book Gardens of the Hudson Valley written by Susan Daley and published by The Monacelli Press, LLC. This book was released on 2010-10-19 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The majesty of the Hudson River has captivated both artists and visitors for generations, and the gardens along its banks have a special character. Those created for the Gilded Age estates are more formal; private gardens respond directly to the rolling landscape and mature forests. The area is a crucible for the development of American landscape design since the major figures—Alexander Jackson Downing, Frederick Law Olmsted, Beatrix Farrand, and Fletcher Steele—all worked in the Hudson Valley. Gardens of the Hudson Valley focuses on the historic landscape and how gardens have been integrated into it. Photographers Steve Gross and Susan Daly have selected twenty-five gardens between Yonkers and Hudson, including famous estate gardens like Kykuit, Boscobel, the Vanderbilt Mansion, and Olana (all open to the public) and private gardens that combine sweeping views and lush plantings. Garden writers Susan Lowry and Nancy Berner describe each of the gardens in detail, focusing on the history of the site and the strategies for design and plant materials.

Book Backroad Bicycling in the Hudson Valley and Catskills

Download or read book Backroad Bicycling in the Hudson Valley and Catskills written by Peter Kick and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new installment of the bicycling series profiles less-traveled and quieter roads and byways accessible from New York City, in a traveler's reference to the Hudson Valley and Catskills that provides mile-by-mile directions, accessible maps, and a wealth of historical, cultural, and natural information. Original.

Book Historic Houses of the Hudson River Valley  1663 1915

Download or read book Historic Houses of the Hudson River Valley 1663 1915 written by Gregory R. Long and published by Rizzoli International Publications. This book was released on 2004 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Overlooking the majestic Hudson River, the Hudson Valley has long been a favored place to live. Historic Houses of the Hudson River Valley is a sumptuous presentation of 33 houses in the region, ranging from the earliest Dutch cottages still extant to the grand Gothic and Italianate revival, stately Georgian, Federal, and beaux-arts country homes of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Book Trails with Tales

Download or read book Trails with Tales written by Russell Dunn and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 30 HIKES INCLUDE -- Starks Knob & Schuylerville Champlain Canal Towpath -- Saratoga National Historic Park -- Geyser Park -- Vischer Ferry Nature & Historic Preserve -- Peebles Island State Park -- Oakwood Cemetery -- Burden Pond Environmental Park -- Ann Lee Pond -- Indian Ladder -- Bennett Hill Preserve -- Clarksville Cave Preserve -- Edmund Niles Huyck Preserve -- Balanced Rocks -- Shaker Mountain -- No Bottom Pond -- Tyringham Cobble -- Ice Glen & Laura's Tower -- Ashintully Estate & McLennan Preserve -- Vroman's Nose -- Pratt Rock -- Lindenwald & Martin Van Buren Nature Trail -- Rogers Island -- Olana -- Montgomery Place -- Ravena Falls -- Hudson River School Art Trail -- Catskill Mountain House Escarpment -- Saugerties Lighthouse -- Overlook Mountain -- Sky Top & Mohonk Lake

Book Out Windham Way

Download or read book Out Windham Way written by Larry Tompkins and published by . This book was released on 2014-10-01 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over 400 illustrations culled from the author's remarkable collection of historic Catskill Mountain photographs, maps, and ephemera document the visual record of the Greene County villages of Windham, Prattsville, Ashland, Big Hollow (Maplecrest), Hensonville, and their outlying settlements such as East Windham, Union Society, Red Falls, Brook Lynne, and North Settlement from the 1890s through the 1940s. Settled shortly after the Revolution, these Catskill mountaintop communities began as a scattering of subsistence farms and mill towns harvesting forest resources. In the early 1800s turnpikes brought commerce and travelers, and the seeds were sown for what would become one of the premier summer vacation venues in Upstate New York. That hospitality tradition continues today as the region has become a year-round vacation destination with one of New York¿s largest and finest ski areas. Nearly forty years ago, Larry Tompkins, a seventh-generation resident of Greene County¿s Catskill mountaintop community, began collecting antique photographs, postcards and ephemera¿business cards, invoices, bills of sale, advertisements¿of the northern Catskill Mountains. Over the years that collection grew to become one of the most remarkable records of community life to be found anywhere in the Catskill Mountain region. The 400 photographs, maps, and ephemera in this book are just a sample.

Book Catskill Mountain Guide

Download or read book Catskill Mountain Guide written by Peter Kick and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This detailed guide provides complete coverage of more than 300 miles of trails in the beautiful Catskill Mountains.

Book Thomas Cole s Refrain

    Book Details:
  • Author : H. Daniel Peck
  • Publisher : Three Hills
  • Release : 2019
  • ISBN : 9781501733079
  • Pages : 200 pages

Download or read book Thomas Cole s Refrain written by H. Daniel Peck and published by Three Hills. This book was released on 2019 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Shows how Thomas Cole's neglected Catskill Creek paintings cohere as a series and express the artist's deep attachment to place and region"--