Posts from Hudson Park Library

What kind of reader are you?

There is something about a photograph that speaks of permanence, but what it captures is the quintessence of the ephemeral — a moment in time.

Witch-hazel. Many plants have evocative names, but few can beat witch-hazel. It sounds magical, although as an old-fashioned treatment for insect bites, maybe it is less than magic, but its scent always makes you feel cooler and fresher.

Fusiliers: The Saga of a British Redcoat Regiment in the American Revolution by Mark Urban should be required reading for all aspiring historians on the American Revolutionary War. Many older historians should also take note of this fine book. Mark Urban purports to tell the story of one British regiment, the 23rd, or Royal Welch Fusiliers, but it is really about the whole British expereince in the war that the book concerns itself. While focusing on this one illustrious corps the author provides us a means to evaluate the whole evolutionary process the British army went through in this conflict.

Village artist Elliott Gilbert finds his inspiration in the landscapes and ancient buildings of France. And sometimes he finds his inspiration closer to home, as in this work City Hall Park.

He is exhibiting 15 pieces at the Hudson Park Library through the end of February 2011.

For any manmade thing to survive for over five hundred years is an amazing. For it to be a Jewish book in Europe is a miracle.

Join the Hudson Park book discussion June 12 for some lively talk about Nathan Englander's Ministry of Special Cases.

The magic in books has to follow rules. That's what makes these books like games: The characters have to figure out how to win the quest or contest (or defeat the evil forces) by using magic correctly. But sometimes the rules underlying the magic don't quite make sense.

A common rule of magic (and of games) is that once something is done, it can't be undone. That's the magical rule that applies in The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke.

There's still time to pick up your copy of One Thousand White Women: The Journals of Mary Dodd by Jim Fergus and join our next book discussion May 8 at 10:30 am.

What would have happened if the U.S. government had agreed to trade 1,000 women to be wives for Cheyenne Indians in exchange for 1,000 horses?

Get your copy at Hudson Park.

In a magical world the rules of physics do not apply. Things float, people transform and travel through time and space. They appear and disappear. Often what matters is a hidden talent and, perhaps, a special object or substance. The usual rules do not apply.

The winners of the Ezra Jack Keats Bookmaking Contest, open to students in New York City public schools, are on display at the Hudson Park Childrens Room through May 22. These books are beautiful and imaginative. Plan a trip to see them! Call us up (212.243.6876) to schedule a class trip.

Detail from A Day in the Museum by Jun Ying Wu of IS 259, William McKinley, in Brooklyn. A citywide winner, this book has pop-up recreations of famous art pieces:

St. John's Burying Ground used to occupy the space which is now James J. Walker Park, between Leroy, Hudson and Clarkson Streets. In a sense it still does since the old stones were buried in place and few of the 10,000 occupants were moved. The only stone remaining is one dedicated to three firemen who gave their lives in the line of duty over 150 years ago.

Memoirs are notoriously unreliable when it comes to facts. So a reader needs to read between the lines to get at the truth about a subject. That's part of the fun.

How does that work with a graphic memoir? Do the drawings help you better see inside the author?

Before Salt or Cod there was Beautiful Swimmers, a book about everything blue crab. Actually, this book is as much a study of Chesapeake watermen, but can you really separate the watermen from the crabs? Not on your life.

I grew up on the Eastern Shore and William Warner gets the watermen right, for the most part. Watermen always call each other "honey", for instance. The watermen are extremely hard working and independent and by the end of this book, I had a lot of respect for what they do. 

Why was a former railroad freight terminal named for a church?

What's odder still is that the terminal was named for a church that had been demolished about 20 years before the terminal was built. And the location of the terminal and the church are not even particularly close.

The connection is the railroad.

Place names stick around even when the source of the name has long disappeared. One name like that in the Hudson Park neighborhood is St. John's.

Hudson Park is hosting "Paris and Provence," art by West Village painter Elliott Gilbert, in its Reference Room Gallery through the end of February.

The work includes 15 canvases of Provence and some lesser-known areas of Paris, including Parc Monceau, a favorite place of Monet. One more view after the break.

Look at all that parking! So few cars! The downside of Leroy Street from 75 years ago is no trees. I'll take the trees and Leroy Street (aka St. Lukes Place) as it is today.