Welcome to my Blog! I’m very excited to have you on board! Central Park Story is a young adult adventure series whose main character is a sixteen-year-old boy named Christopher Middleton. It’s also a treasure hunt/romance/historical adventure/fantasy/humorous tale all rolled into one! I put a lot of time researching the backdrop to the series which […]
I might also have asked, ‘And who thought this crazy creature up in the first place?’ (see photo to the right) According to the dictionary, a cockatrice is a dragon with the head of a rooster, the body of a snake, and the wings of a bat–or as Christopher in Central Park Story said when […]
One of the most impressive statues in Central Park is that of Jagiello, King of Poland. Encountering its imposing presence along one the park’s circuitous paths, it’s hard not to imagine it leaping off its pedestal and charging through the forest after a dragon! Once a part of the Polish pavilion at the New York […]
In my young adult adventure series, Central Park Story, Christopher Middleton, the main character, introduces some revolutionary ideas into his new school. Picking up on the idea, his clothes-minded girlfriend decides to design a uniform that he can wear. Naturally, she turns to General George Washington for inspiration. As you can see from the picture […]
As Christopher Middleton’s chemistry teacher learns in my young adult adventure series, Central Park Story, it’s probably best not to mix potassium permanganate and ethanol or you might experience the following: Link to this post!
The Guggenheim Museum at 89th Street and Fifth was first conceived as a “temple of the spirit” that would facilitate a new way of looking at modern art. Numerous locations in Manhattan were considered, but Mr. Guggenheim felt that the site’s proximity to Central Park was important. The park afforded relief from the city, while […]
“Mad as a March hare” is a common English phrase, both now and in Lewis Carroll’s time. It is reported in The Annotated Alice by Martin Gardner that this proverb is based on popular belief about the hares’ behavior at the beginning of the breeding season. Early in the season, unreceptive females often use their […]
In Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, Alice first meets three cards (the 2, 5 and 7 of Spades) in the Queen’s garden. One of them explains that they accidentally planted white roses. Because the queen hates white roses they have to paint them red or the Queen will behead them. After the Queen arrives, she […]
.The Mayflower Compact was the first governing document of Plymouth Colony. It was written by separatist Congregationalists (later referred to as Pilgrims) fleeing from religious persecution by King James of England. It was signed aboard ship on November 11, 1620 by 41 adult male Pilgrims (out of 101 men, women and children on board). It […]
In 1849, Frederick Law Olmsted became secretary of an organization of farmers on Staten Island called the Richmond County Agricultural Society, and wrote the following: “We ask you, then, Fellow Citizens, one and all, to associate in this Society. We entreat you to support it. We believe it will increase the profit of our labor–enhance […]
The New York Times was founded as the New-York Daily Times on September 18, 1851 and shortened its name to The New York Times in 1857. It has the largest circulation of any metropolitan newspaper in the US and has won 111 Pulitzer prizes over its history. No doubt, Frederick Law Olmsted himself read it […]
