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Member: EffinghamParkLibrary

CollectionsYour library (2,562)

ReviewsNone

TagsNew York (697), Fiction (449), Brooklyn (282), Genealogy (217), Italy (202), Italian-American (135), Gravesend (120), Immigration (117), Poetry (117), Architecture (114) — see all tags

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GroupsBrooklynites, Cemeteries & Gravestones, Genealogy@LT, Librarians who LibraryThing, New Yorkers

About meThe image seen here is a small watercolor by Charles William Bauhan (ca. 1861-1938) of "Mr. Wiltse, Gravesend, L.I., June 1893." The town of Gravesend, on the western tip of Long Island, was first settled in 1643. It was annexed to the City of Brooklyn in 1894, and Brooklyn, in turn, became a borough of Greater New York City in 1898. Bauhan depicts Homer Wiltse (ca. 1820-1898) tending his garden in the days just before Gravesend's annexation and eventual urbanization.

"Effingham Park" was a late 19th- and early 20th-century real estate development in Gravesend that never really got beyond the naming stage. As I’ve lived within its boundaries all my life, and likely have the largest collection of books in the neighborhood, it seems fitting that I should call my library after the forgotten Effingham Park.

I know this is the "About me" section, but there really is no separating me from Gravesend. For as long as I can remember, I have been obsessed with knowing all I can about this place, about its early inhabitants, and about its rapidly vanishing past that each day slips further into and out of memory.

This curiosity is by no means limited to Gravesend, but extends to myriad interests. A glance at my tag list might not reveal any immediate subject connections, but somehow, in my mind, each book on my shelves relates to every other.

More to come....

NEWS: My book, GRAVESEND, BROOKLYN, a title in Arcadia Publishing's "Then & Now" series, was released on July 20, 2009. It is available through major retailers like Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com, or directly from the publisher: http://www.arcadiapublishing.com/mm5/mer...

Homepagehttp://www.gravesend-ny.org

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Real nameJoseph Ditta

LocationGravesend, Brooklyn, New York

Emailgravesendworldnet.att.net

Favorite authorsNone

Account typepublic, lifetime

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URLs http://www.librarything.com/profile/EffinghamParkLibrary (profile)
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Common KnowledgeSeries (160), Awards (222), Characters (2481), Places (500)

Member sinceAug 25, 2006