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 […]
Behind every myth lies a truth, and the the myth of the cockatrice is no exception. With the head of a rooster, the body of a snake, and the wings of a bat, this mythical creature is a composite of all that we fear most. When I chose it as an embodiment of all the […]
Thutmose III would have taken offense at hearing it called ‘Cleopatra’s Needle’. The obelisk was over 1000 years old by the time Cleopatra was even born! Thutmose III made this monument as an everlasting testament to his reign, and he clearly had a high opinion of himself because its inscriptions compare him to the gods. […]
Alexander Hamilton was a Federalist (believer in a strong central government) and a capitalist (he was the creator of the Central Bank). Though he was one of the founding fathers and signatories of the Declaration of Independence and put his life on the line for his country (he was Washington’s chief of staff during the […]
The pond in front of Belvedere Castle is a miniature nature preserve that, over the years, has attracted everything from ducks and turtles to a rare species of dragonfly that hasn’t been seen in the park in decades. Being a designated quiet zone, it’s a perfect place for a writer to let his or her […]
As an artist brought up on a farm, Christopher Middleton would naturally notice the elms on his very first day in the city. Not so, when it came to my own first year in the Big A. Like most kids, I took them for granted even when my mother pointed them out (she grew up in Boston […]
When first approaching the Angel of the Waters Fountain at the Bethesda Terrace, it’s easy to overlook the staircase that one must descend in order to get there. Sculpted from Brunswick sandstone and designed by the brilliant architect, Jacob Wrey Mould, it is well worth having a closer look. The reliefs that flank the two […]
‘War is Hell’, is a statement generally attributed to the famous Civil War general, William Tecumseh Sherman. You’d never know it by looking at his sculpture at Grand Army Plaza just south of Central Park. Covered in 23.75 karat gold leaf (along with several layers of polyurethane to keep it from corroding) Sherman looks like […]
In case you aren’t familiar with the definition of an arcade, it’s a succession of arches, each counter-thrusting the next and supported by columns or piers. The beauty of its design is that it creates a quasi-interior space that can both protect from the elements while, at the same time, lend a sense of being […]
It turns out that there is no one answer to the question ‘What is a genius loci?’ In classical Roman religion, a genius loci was the protective spirit of a place. It was depicted in religious iconography as a figure holding attributes such as a cornucopia, patera (libation bowl) or snake. In contemporary usage, genius loci […]
In algebraic geometry, a lemniscate is any of several figure-eight shaped curves. The word comes from the Latin, “lēmniscātus” meaning “decorated with ribbons”, which may come from the ancient Greek island of Lemnos where ribbons were worn as decorations. If you still don’t know what a lemniscate is (I admit I’m not much of a mathematician […]
