Utopia Parkway

Deborah Solomon’s definitive biography of Joseph Cornell, one of America’s most moving and unusual twentieth-century artists, now reissued twenty years later with updated and extensively revised text Few artists ever led a stranger life than Joseph Cornell, the self-taught American genius prized for his enigmatic shadow boxes, who stands at the intersection of Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, and Pop Art. Legends about Cornell abound—the shy hermit, the devoted family caretaker, the artistic innocent—but never before has he been presented for what he was: a brilliant, relentlessly serious artist whose stature has now reached monumental proportions.

This up-to-date, intimate portrait of the 99 neighborhoods of Queens is a wonderful tribute to the borough’s past history and present diversity. Detailing the history, people, and cultural activities of each neighborhood, the book is generously illustrated with more than 200 photographs, both contemporary and historical, and over 50 new maps that chart the precise neighborhood boundaries. With two airports (La Guardia and JFK), Shea Stadium, and Aqueduct Racetrack, Queens is a destination for millions of travelers and visitors each year. But those who live in the borough’s neighborhoods know that it offers much more: parks, bridges, colleges and universities, museums, shops, restaurants, and other institutions and sites that testify to its more than 350-year history. From Astoria to Woodside, with points in between, Queens, the most diverse county in the country, offers a cornucopia of cultures, sights, tastes, and sounds. With input from residents, historians, demographers, politicians, borough officials, shopkeepers, and many others, The Neighborhoods of Queens captures the unique character of each neighborhood. The book features practical tips (subway and bus routes, libraries, fire departments, hospitals), quirky and unusual neighborhood facts, and information on famous residents. For anyone who lives in Queens, visits its neighborhoods, or remembers it from earlier times, this book is an unsurpassed treasure.

Provides a look at St. John's University from the students' viewpoint.

"The essays collected here derive from a two-day international and interdisciplinary conference, entitled 'Boxing Clever: A Centennial Re-Evaluation of Joseph Cornell', which was held at the AHRC Centre for the Studies of Surrealism and Its Legacies at the University of Essex between 17 and 19 September, 2003"--P. [9].

The "boxes" and collages constructed by Joseph Cornell (1903–72) are among the most intriguing and beguiling works of art made this century. Old toys, photos, magazine illustrations, bits of electrical wiring – anything in fact more usually left to molder in lumber rooms or junkshops – were hoarded by him as the elemental materials he needed for his constructions. The finished works are visually entrancing, but the intensely personal webs of reverie and association that determined their content make these boxes at once both oddly familiar yet ineluctably strange. Drawing on the widest range possible of primary material – virtually all Cornell's scrapbooks and source files, as well as correspondence and diaries – supplemented by further details gathered during more than fifty interviews undertaken with the artist's family and acquaintances, including Robert Motherwell and Susan Sontag, Lindsay Blair gives us the most detailed picture yet of an artist who hid so much of his life from the world. Her conclusion, wholly convincing in the light of the evidence she provides, is that Cornell's ultimate subject was the mind itself.

A critical look at transcendence and a radical delight with language

A guide to the forgotten waterways hidden throughout the five boroughs Beneath the asphalt streets of Manhattan, creeks and streams once flowed freely. The remnants of these once-pristine waterways are all over the Big Apple, hidden in plain sight. Hidden Waters of New York City offers a glimpse at the big city’s forgotten past and ever-changing present, including: Minetta Brook, which ran through today's Greenwich Village Collect Pond in the Financial District, the city's first water source Newtown Creek, separating Brooklyn and Queens Bronx River, still a hotspot for urban canoeing and hiking Filled with eye-opening historical anecdotes and walking tours of all five boroughs, this is a side of New York City you’ve never seen.