Ulster County, New York


Book Description

The 325 sites author William B. Rhoads explores in Ulster County, New York display the variety and changing architectural styles that have appeared over nearly 300 years in the Hudson River Valley and Catskill Mountains, from 17th-century Dutch limestone houses of the colonial era, through the Federal and Victorian periods, up to the Modernist architecture of the mid-1950s. The architecture reflects the history, tracing the evolution of one of the first regions in today's New York State to be settled by Europeans. Dutch and French Huguenot villages and homesteads of the 1600s form the core of today's Kingston, New Paltz, and Hurley, surrounded by the structures built by their descendants and later immigrants the English, Irish, Italians, and scores of other ethnic and national groups as Ulster County rose from the ashes of the American Revolution and became an important commercial center, with bustling ports on the Hudson River in the booming 19th-century "Empire State."




A Brief History of Seven Killings


Book Description

A tale inspired by the 1976 attempted assassination of Bob Marley spans decades and continents to explore the experiences of journalists, drug dealers, killers, and ghosts against a backdrop of social and political turmoil.




Historic Bearden


Book Description

In its time, Bearden has seen a motley assortment of pioneers, some of them immigrants, some of them rare African American landowners, spread alongside the toll road into the western wilderness; the first railroad ever built through East Tennessee; Knoxville's first eighteen-hole golf course; the dawn of aviation in East Tennessee, and Knoxville's first municipal airport; a major brick factory, a landmark hat factory, and the biggest rose-production plant in the South; the junction of two of America's first national automobile routes, spawning half a century of tourist camps, motor courts, and motels; jazz nightclubs and slot-machine speakeasies; drive-in restaurants, movie theaters, and bootlegging joints; Knoxville's first cinema multiplex; and too many interesting residents to count, including some cutting-edge musicians, a Pulitzer-winning novelist, and a groundbreaking inventor. This narrative attempts to tell it all as one story, the story of Bearden.







Hudson Valley Ruins


Book Description

An elegant homage to the many deserted buildings along the Hudson River--and a plea for their preservation.




Hudson River Lighthouses


Book Description

Lighthouses were built on the Hudson River in New York between 1826 to 1921 to help guide freight and passenger traffic. One of the most famous was the iconic Statue of Liberty. This fascinating history with photos will bring the time of traffic along the river alive. Set against the backdrop of purple mountains, lush hillsides, and tidal wetlands, the lighthouses of the Hudson River were built between 1826 and 1921 to improve navigational safety on a river teeming with freight and passenger traffic. Unlike the towering beacons of the seacoasts, these river lighthouses were architecturally diverse, ranging from short conical towers to elaborate Victorian houses. Operated by men and women who at times risked and lost their lives in service of safe navigation, these beacons have overseen more than a century of extraordinary technological and social change. Of the dozens of historic lighthouses and beacons that once dotted the Hudson River, just eight remain, including the iconic Statue of Liberty, New York Harbor's great monument to freedom and immigration, which served as an official lighthouse between 1886 and 1902. Hudson River Lighthouses invites readers to explore these unique icons and their fascinating stories.




A Kingston Album


Book Description

This album follows the history of Kingston from the founding of Fort Frontenac and the accompanying French settlement of Cataraqui in 1673 to its present-day incarnation as a popular tourist and travel destination. In addition to its fine military tradition, Kingston has also been the centre of commerce, shipping, industry, education, and government in the region. Many local citizens have prospered greatly from these diverse endeavours. Others have been less fortunate. From the boom times of Dilene Dexter Calvin’s huge shipping industry and James Richardson’s grain enterprise to the corruption and cruelty of Kingston Penetentiary under Warden Henry Smith Sr., the ups and downs of Kingston’s citizens have mirrored the city’s own. As Kingston’s importance grew, so too did the influence its inhabitants had during the last days of the unified colony and the first of the fledgling Dominion. Sir John Graves Simcoe made Kingston his home for a time, as did Lord Sydenham and Sir John A. Macdonald. More than one hundred black-and-white photographs accompany the text, granting an intimate look at all facets of life in Kingston over the last century. From the prisoners’ quarters at Fort Henry during World War I and the fire in City Hall, to the bustle of market square at the turn of the century and the lonely stretch of road which was Division Street, these photos display both the momentous occasions in the city’s history and the mundane. Hand-picked from the collections of the National Archives of Canada, the Archives of Ontario, and Queen’s University Archives, these beautiful photographs capture the pride and the pain of a city constantly in transition.




Crawley House


Book Description

Like a grand lady, the house has reigned over Harvest Street for almost a century. It's a splendid home- a sweeping veranda, ivy covered walls and spacious rooms, all within a short walk to the campus. Add to its charm the exceptionally low rent, and it's a perfect student rental. In spite of this, tenants never stay. Within weeks of settling in, they flee; whispering tales of occurrences that were first odd, then escalated to terrifying. Over the years, the house has stood vacant for longer and longer periods. Gillian McDougall has just moved to Kingston and this Victorian era house is perfect! Dirt cheap rent, close to the university and a fenced backyard for her five year old daughter Sarah, make the place irresistible. Gillian's mother Maureen, Sarah's loving Nana agrees. Together, the three of them will build a new life here, and this house will once again become a family home. Soon, they too learn that this house is bewitched. Odd things start to happen. Sarah loves the swing in the backyard and her new friends, twin girls who no one else has seen. Nana Maureen can't sleep in her room. She's constantly woken by creaking floors, nightmares of being strangled and the smell of rotting flesh. They have never quarreled before, but now the air is heavy with tension. Small disagreements explode into rage. They don't know that they're only the second family to ever dwell under this roof. They don't know about the horrible fate that befell the original family. They don't know about the greed and hatred from an earlier era that still breathes in the very walls of this house. This malevolence doesn't want Gillian's family to run away. It wants them dead




The Seven Visitations of Sydney Burgess


Book Description

From an electrifying voice in horror comes the haunting tale of a woman whose life begins to unravel after a home invasion. “Marino offers horrors both existential and visceral. From a stunning opening, the sense of dread just builds and builds.” —M. R. Carey, author of The Girl with All the Gifts "Odd and dark and fascinating . . . Not quite like anything I've ever read before. A strange, compelling, late-night page-turner. It kept me reading way past my bedtime." —T. Kingfisher, author of The Hollow Places Possession is an addiction. Sydney's spent years burying her past and building a better life for herself and her young son. A respectable marketing job, a house with reclaimed and sustainable furniture, and a boyfriend who loves her son and accepts her, flaws and all. But when she opens her front door, and a masked intruder knocks her briefly unconscious, everything begins to unravel. She wakes in the hospital and tells a harrowing story of escape. Of dashing out a broken window. Of running into her neighbors' yard and calling the police. The cops tell her a different story. Because the intruder is now lying dead in her guest room—murdered in a way that looks intimately personal. Sydney can't remember killing the man. No one believes her. Back home, as horrific memories surface, an unnatural darkness begins whispering in her ear. Urging her back to old addictions and a past she's buried to build a better life for herself and her son. As Sydney searches for truth among the wreckage of a past that won't stay buried for long, the unquiet darkness begins to grow. To change into something unimaginable. To reveal terrible cravings of its own. “Admirers of the works of Tana French, Megan Abbott, and Zoje Stage will devour this book.” —Booklist