The Meyer Farms of New Springville, Staten Island, New York, 1903-late 1950s shows the transformation of land from agrarian to suburban in the least populated New York City borough, and is a microcosm of what was happening across the country. After twenty years of farming various lots in Jersey City, New Jersey, the prescient Henry H. Meyer bought over two hundred acres of farmland in the middle of Staten Island, and, with his sons, ran one of the three largest agricultural enterprises on the Island. Each day carriages with teams of horses, and later motorized trucks, made trips to the Washington Market on the Lower East Side of Manhattan with vegetables and herbs that were then sold to hotels and restaurants. Henry's great-granddaughter has combined family legend and extensive research to tell the story of immense success and searing loss. The Great Depression of the 1930s, as well as mortgage foreclosures on farms, and family dynamics, contributed to the downfall.

About the Author

"My writing career started when a colleague urged me to write a guidebook to literary homes and haunts in England. I wrote up a proposal, got a small advance, marked up a map of England with circles of all such places open to the public, and stepped onto a plane... I got hooked on traveling and writing about it, especially when readers told me that they either wanted to go to a place I'd written about, or they felt that they'd been transported there. 

At the present time I describe myself as a travel writer who specializes in culture and ecotourism. Walking cities and trekking through the countryside is the way I gather material... In 1997 I earned a second master's degree, a Master of Fine Arts in Writing. Now I'm even more intent on seizing the essence of a place in a lyrical, captivating way; I want to relay information through a fluid story, and in a way that the reader can visualize. That is what travel writing is about."