A critically acclaimed best-seller set in the glamorous, gangster-dominated Hollywood of the 1940s tells the story of Blue Tyler, a child star who disappears from Hollywood and becomes a bag lady in New York City.

Playland offers an inviting look at the historic amusement park on the shore of the Long Island Sound in Rye. This book recalls the early days and the later years of Playland, a national historic landmark and America's only publicly owned amusement park. Opened in 1928 as part of the newly developed Westchester County Park System, Playland originally drew crowds that arrived via automobile, bus, and steamship for the circus acts, sideshows, and rides, such as the Swooper, an oval roller coaster, and the Derby Racer, one of only two left in the United States. An all-purpose resort, the park included a beach, bathhouse, pool, and casino with restaurants and games. Today the park draws even larger crowds--nearly a million people each season--that come for the Dragon Coaster and other rides, Kiddyland, the indoor ice rink, the pool, the beach, and the boardwalk.

Items and people the little engine might see along its journey.

Playland offers an inviting look at the historic amusement park on the shore of the Long Island Sound in Rye. This book recalls the early days and the later years of Playland, a national historic landmark and Americas only publicly owned amusement park. Opened in 1928 as part of the newly developed Westchester County Park System, Playland originally drew crowds that arrived via automobile, bus, and steamship for the circus acts, sideshows, and rides, such as the Swooper, an oval roller coaster, and the Derby Racer, one of only two left in the United States. An all-purpose resort, the park included a beach, bathhouse, pool, and casino with restaurants and games. Today the park draws even larger crowdsnearly a million people each seasonthat come for the Dragon Coaster and other rides, Kiddyland, the indoor ice rink, the pool, the beach, and the boardwalk.

Brian Dolan's social and cultural history of the music business in relation to the history of the player piano is a critical chapter in the story of contemporary life. The player piano made the American music industry-and American music itself-modern. For years, Tin Pan Alley composers and performers labored over scores for quick ditties destined for the vaudeville circuit or librettos destined for the Broadway stage. But, the introduction of the player piano in the early 1900s, transformed Tin Pan Alley's guild of composers, performers, and theater owners into a music industry. The player piano, with its perforated music rolls that told the pianos what key to strike, changed musical performance because it made a musical piece standard, repeatable, and easy rather than something laboriously learned. It also created a national audience because the music that was played in New Orleans or Kansas City could also be played in New York or Missoula, as new music (ragtime) and dance (fox-trot) styles crisscrossed the continent along with the player piano's music rolls. By the 1920s, only automobile sales exceeded the amount generated by player pianos and their music rolls. Consigned today to the realm of collectors and technological arcane, the player piano was a moving force in American music and American life.

This book is a memoir of my boyhood, the 14 years between 1934 and 1948, Memory is the way we allow the past to live in the present. But the past is not experienced in a vacuum. Memories have locations in a particular time and particular places. Th is brief memoir is attempt to share my boyhood as shaped by the Great Depression of the 1930s and the World War II years of the 1940s. In the writing of these pages it became evident to me that indeed the experiences of my childhood have greatly shaped the person I am today. It is hoped that this modest memoir may at once be an enjoyable read as well as encourage the reader to recall his or her own childhood days and reflect upon how that time may have shaped their lives.