For more than one hundred years, Ocean Grove New Jersey has provided a retreat to those wishing to return to a life of religious renewal and recreation by the shore. In 1869, a group of ministers and religious faithful established a permanent Methodist camp meeting community on the North Jersey shore. A state charter was issued one year later, and the community of Ocean Grove was born. Following the example set by other camp meetings, Ocean Grove became a center for religious revivals. The...

An intimate portrait of the Big AppleAs a child growing up in Manhattan, William Helmreich played a game with his father called "Last Stop." They would pick a subway line, ride it to its final destination, and explore the neighborhood. Decades later, his love for exploring the city was as strong as ever.Putting his feet to the test, he decided that the only way to truly understand New York was to walk virtually every block of all five boroughs—an astonishin...

To what extent was Rosario “Russell” Bufalino involved in the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa in 1975? In the CIA’s recruitment of gangsters to assassinate Fidel Castro? In organizing the historic meeting of crime chieftains in 1957? Even in the production of The Godfather movie?A uniquely American saga that spans six decades, The Quiet Don follows Russell Bufalino’s remarkably quiet ascent from Sicilian immigrant to mob soldier to a man described by...

The inner workings of a writer’s life, the interplay between experience and writing, are brilliantly recounted by a master of the art. Gay Talese now focuses on his own life—the zeal for the truth, the narrative edge, the sometimes startling precision, that won accolades for his journalism and best-sellerdom and acclaim for his revelatory books about The New York Times (The Kingdom and the Power), the Mafia (Honor Thy Father), the sex industry (Thy Neighbor’s Wife),

The author of Wicked Northern New York delivers the most chilling historic true crime stories from the state's northern tier.Jefferson County, located in New York's beautiful North Country, has a dark and violent past. During the long winter months, it was not the cold that was feared, but the killers. In 1828, Henry Evans committed a crime so brutal that the location in Brownsville is still called Slaughter Hill. A real-life Little Red Riding Hood, eleven...

When Deborah Rudacille was a child growing up in the working-class town of Dundalk, Maryland, a worker at the local Sparrows Point steel mill made more than enough to comfortably support a family. But in the decades since, the decline of American manufacturing has put tens of thousands out of work and left the people of Dundalk pondering the broken promise of the American dream.In Roots of Steel, Rudacille combines personal narrative, interviews with workers, and extensive...

In the two hundred years following the War of 1812, the Chesapeake Campaign became romanticized in tall tales and local legends. St. Michael's on the Eastern Shore of Maryland was famously cast as the town that fooled the British, and in Baltimore, the defenders of Fort McHenry were reputably rallied by a remarkably patriotic pet rooster. In Virginia, the only casualty in a raid on Cape Henry was reportedly the lighthouse keeper's smokehouse larder, while Admiral Cockburn was said to have ...

Just after noon on September 16, 1920, as hundreds of workers poured onto Wall Street for their lunchtime break, a horse-drawn cart packed with dynamite exploded in a spray of metal and fire, turning the busiest corner of the financial center into a war zone. Thirty-nine people died and hundreds more lay wounded, making the Wall Street explosion the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history until the Oklahoma City bombing. In The Day Wall Street Exploded, Beverly Gage tells the story...

By every measure, Hurricane Sandy was a disaster of epic proportions. The deadliest storm to strike the East Coast since Hurricane Diane in 1955, Sandy killed thirty-seven people and caused more than $30 billion in damages in 2012 to New Jersey alone. But earlier centuries experienced their own catastrophes.In Disaster!, Alan A. Siegel brings readers face-to-face with twenty-eight of the deadliest natural and human-caused calamities to strike New Jersey between 1821 and 19...

A storyteller examines Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and the lore that inspired it, as well as other local legends of the Hudson Valley.The story of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman is one of America's best-known fables, but what other stories does the Hudson Valley hold? Imps cause mischief on the Hudson River, a white lady haunts Raven Rock, Major Andre's ghost seeks redemption and real headless Hessians search for their severed skulls. These myst...

Woodstock Revisited is an invitation to do what people have been doing for over 200 years: take another look at Woodstock. The summer visitors of the 19th century and the artists and weekenders of the early 20th century beganthe trend of exploring the Woodstock area. Eventually, many who revisited Woodstock time and again decided to pull up roots and make this small upstate New York town their permanent home. In today�s world, Woodstock has becomea refuge for a new generation of people loo...

In the summer of 1854, the Brooklyn City Railroad opened four separate streetcar lines. The lines were introduced here several years before they were brought to larger cities, such as Baltimore, Boston, and Philadelphia, demonstrating the city�s modernization and ingenuity. From its first introduction, Brooklyn had one of the nation�s largest urban transit systems. With the advent of streetcars, the population in Brooklyn grew from about 139,000 to over 2.5 million by the time streetcars w...