Central Park: it’s New York City’s urban paradise, and this colorful guidebook documents every stunning inch of it. A detailed map covers all 843 acres, with icons pointing out the best photo sites, most important monuments and statues, locations of restaurants and public services, and many other features. The highlighted attractions include Belvedere Castle, the Wildlife Center & Zoo, and great bird watching spots, while a handy sports section offers comprehensive information on jogging, tennis, biking, and rowing. Plus, you’ll find leads on six walking tours, a seasonal flowering guide to the park’s plants and trees, and ideas for fun kids’ activities. With over 100 full-color photographs, including a full illustrated history of the park, this outstanding volume is packed with fascinating facts about New York’s popular garden spot.

Explore Central Park’s more than 150 landmarks and attractions. Six walking tours take you around the Pond, Mall, Lake, Ramble, Reservoir, and Meer. Illustrations of birds and waterfowl and a seasonal guide to flora reveal the natural wonders. Fifteen pages of maps identify all the paths, roadways, places of interest, and public services. It’s a fantastic resource for travelers and native New Yorkers, too.

Delineate the politicians, business people, artists, immigrant laborers, and city dwellers who are the key players in the tale. In tracing the park's history, the writers also give us the history of New York. They explain how squabbles over politics, taxes, and real estate development shaped the park and describe the acrimonious debates over what a public park should look like, what facilities it should offer, and how it should accommodate the often incompatible.

“An over-the-top romp through 1870s America . . . compulsively readable.” —Oprah.com Jean Zimmerman’s spectacular follow-up to The Orphanmaster has it all: Gilded Age romance, robber baron excess, detective story suspense, and a compelling female protagonist whom readers will fall in love with. In 1875, the Delegates, an outlandishly wealthy Manhattan couple on a tour of the American West, seek out a sideshow attraction called “Savage Girl.” Her handlers avow that the wild, seemingly mute Bronwyn has been raised by wolves. Presented with the perfect blank slate to explore the power of civilized nurture, the Delegates take her back east to be introduced into high society. Cleaned up, Bronwyn is blazingly smart and darkly beautiful; as she takes steps toward her grand debut, a series of suitors find her irresistible—and begin to turn up murdered.