I'm sad to have finished A Natural History of New York City by John Kiernan. I spread the pleasure out over several months and mixed it well with The Bottom of the Harbor by Joseph Mitchell, and was happy as soft butter.
This book is out of print, I believe, since all of the information in it is "out of date," which is why I like it so much I think – it was originally published in 1959, and the revised and abridged edition went to press in 1971. Though JK is gone he is not forgotten, the Park's Department named a trail in the Van Cordtlandt Park in the Bronx after him. He loved the swamp up there and learned so much from it, and I as well, even as I road the subway back and forth from Brooklyn to Manhattan with his deteriorating work in my hands.
A young man may say with regret that he has never traveled, but if he is twenty years old he has traveled well over 10,000,000,000 miles within our own little solar system, not to mention that far greater distance in galactial rotation at a speed of roughly 175 per second. And never a single mile of this amazing journey retraced! –John Kiernam
3 comments:
That's a good combo. And I like that "happy as soft butter." I think Fordham U Press kept Kiernan's book alive for a while. They had a 2nd ed in '82.
The '71 cover seems so fresh even though it was shot before the twins joined the skyline.
I wonder if the Fordham edition redesigned the cover art.
Yes, but your cover is mo' better.
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