Books on:

Books about the Ecology
of New York City

Natural History of New York City

by John Kieran, Fordham University Press, 1982
Reports on 50 years of study and enjoyment of wildlife in and around New York.

Nature Walks in and Around New York City

by Sheila Buff, Appalachian Mountain Club, 1996
A valuable guide to New York City’s 26,000 acres of wild and beautiful park lands.

New York's 50 Best Places to Go Birding in and Around the Big Apple

by John Thaxton, City & Co., 1998

Red-Tails in Love: A Wildlife Drama in Central Park

by Marie Winn, Vintage Books; 1999

Heartbeats in the Muck: A Dramatic Look at the History, Sea Life, and Environment of New York Harbor

by John R. Waldman, Lyons Press, 2000
Ichthyologist Waldman traces the fate of the harbor from the 17th century, when it teemed with oysters, fish, porpoises and whales to today's pollution.

Manhattan Water-Bound: Manhattan's Waterfront from the Seventeenth Century to the Present

by Ann L. Buttenweiser, Syracuse University Press, 1999

The Hudson: An Illustrated Guide to the Living River

by Stephen P. Stanne, Rutgers Univ Press, 1996
Brings Clearwater’s wealth of knowledge about the Hudson to a wider audience.

Water for Gotham

by Gerard T. Koeppel, Princeton Univ. Press, 2001
“The chief disadvantage of New York," observed Swedish botanist Peter Kalm in the mid-18th century, "is the want of good water." Water for Gotham shows how that lack was overcome.
“Extraordinarily well-researched and remarkably readable”— Caleb Carr, New York Times Book Review

Fat of the Land: The Garbage Of New York--The Last Two Hundred Years

by Benjamin Miller, Four Walls Eight Windows Press, 2000
Former director of policy planning at NYC DOS brings light to an often hidden subject, assessing who gains and who loses in the endless battle over garbage.

A Plague on Your Houses: How New York Was Burned Down and National Public Health Crumbled

by Deborah Wallace, Rodrick Wallace, Verso Books, March 2001

722 Miles: The Building of the Subways and How They Transformed New York

by Clifton Hood, Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1995

Transitory Gardens, Uprooted Lives

by Diana Balmori, Margaret Morton, Yale Univ. Press, 1995
Shows, in word and pictures, gardens built by homeless or impoverished New Yorkers. The book offers insight into the meaning of landscape and the place of a garden in the life of an individual under duress.

The Meadowlands: Wilderness Adventures on the Edge of a City

by Robert Sullivan, Anchor Books, 1999
Reveals a landscape bursting with nature amid the detritus of urban consumption.

Fields of Sun and Grass: An Artist's Journal of the New Jersey Meadowlands

by John R. Quinn, Rutgers Univ Press, 1997
Describes the ecology and history of the meadowlands and the pressures they face today.

Oyster Wars and the Public Trust: Property, Law, and Ecology in New Jersey History

by Bonnie J. McCay, University of Arizona Press, 1998

The Riverkeepers

by John Cronin, Robert F. Kennedy, Touchstone Books, 1999
Sheds light on how the modern environmental movement emerged at the local level and how it is striving to deal with the current, more hostile political landscape.

Urbane Gardeners
Digital Chapbooks

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