Bracco & Burstyn November 15

October 22, 2009 by palisadesfreelibrary

Bracco&Burstyn_Front_2

THE PALISADES FREE LIBRARY

PRESENTS ITS FOURTH SEASON OF AWARD-WINNING

Sunday Symposia : a community cultural series

Bracco & Burstyn

In Conversation

November 15, 2009

3:30 – 5:00

At the IBM Palisades Executive Conference Center, 334, Route 9W, Palisades, NY

Tickets $10 ($5 for Students) to benefit the Palisades Free Library.  Tickets are available in advance at the Library or at the door on the day of the event.

Lorraine Bracco was nominated for an Oscar for the role of Karen Hill, a mobster’s wife, in Goodfellas, and is a three-time Emmy nominee for the role of Dr. Jennifer Melfi, a mobster’s psychiatrist, in The Sopranos.

Ellen Burstyn, a Tony and Oscar winner and a multiple Emmy nominee, may be best known for her star turns in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Same Time, Next Year, and The Exorcist, and has starred in well over one hundred films, television series and dramas.

 

Sunday Symposia October 25, 2009

September 17, 2009 by palisadesfreelibrary

Bill Ryan At Sea_2009Join us from 3:00pm to 4:30pm at the Esplanade at Palisades, 640 Oak Tree Road, Palisades, NY

Reservations required. Please stop by the Library or call
845-359-0136

Suggested donation at the door: $10 ($5 for students)


Mapping Our River in the Footsteps of Henry Hudson by Bill Ryan


Synopsois:

Had Henry Hudson realized in the fall of 1609 that the native
American name “Muhheakunnuk” for his “River of Mountains” meant
“great waters constantly in motion” he could have deduced that it
was not a river but a giant estuary influenced by twice-daily tides
as far inland as its first cataract. Within a decade mariners of the
East India Company had charted the estuary with lead line soundings all the way to this cataract at Troy.

Ten years ago a team from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
repeated the Dutch survey, but instead of just obtaining a hundred
or so soundings, we recorded millions. About every square yard of
the river bed deeper than six feet now has its own sounding.
Examples of the new maps will be on display and illustrated in the
talk.

In addition to soundings, the Lamont researches also obtained
several hundred sediment cores of the river bed mud and sand. The
cores and soundings revealed oyster beds, some buried, but many
still exposed extending from the New York Harbor to the Newburgh
Bridge. The location of these beds turned out to be fascinating.
The top of the exposed beds is very firm mud that provides an unsure footing for mooring and anchors. The river edge towns settled by the Dutch were located always between the beds, such that their ship captains could be assured of a good anchorage. Thus the river bed itself determined settlement patterns.


Bill’s talk will show that shape and content of the Hudson and East
Rivers even determined the street plans for the 17th, 18th and 19th
century development of Manhattan.


The excavations for the building of the World Trade Center beginning
in 1966 and the disposal of soil and rock for the foundations of
Battery Park City at the river’s edge on the west side of Lower
Manhattan has constricted the river causing it to cut a new and deep channel further towards New Jersey. This downcutting is a potential threat to the security of the Lincoln and Holland tunnels. Had the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey appreciated the power of the “great waters constantly in motion”, perhaps they would have had more foresight.


Bill Ryan is a Doherty Senior Scholar and Adjunct Professor Emeritus at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and co-author of the book “Noah’s Flood: The New Scientific Discoveries About the Event That Changed History.”

Hudson Quadricentennial Celebration

August 10, 2009 by palisadesfreelibrary

Saturday and Sunday, September 12 & 13, 2009

from the collection of Vivian Yess Wadlin www.hrvh.org

From the collection of Vivian Yess Wadlin www.hrvh.org




Presented by the Palisades Free Library Historical Committee


Palisades Hudson River Open House
Saturday Sept 12, 2pm – 5 pm


Current and former local residents Bill Knudson, Don Finck, and Lee Sneden share their stories about growing up along the Hudson River. On display will be maps, pictures, 1909 postage stamps and artifacts found over the years, such as old bottles and arrow heads.

At the Palisades Free Library. Free and open to the public.


“The Mystery of Hudson’s Voyage of Discovery”
Sunday Sept 13, 3pm – 4:30pm

Professor and author Charles Stark will present the history of Henry Hudson’s voyage up the Hudson River and explore questions regarding his orders, his intent, and his return to England when in the employ of the Dutch East Indies Company.
At the Esplanade at Palisades, 640 Oak Tree Road, Palisades, NY.
Suggested donation, $10 adults, $5 students.
Please call the Library to register 845-359-0136

New Books

July 31, 2009 by palisadesfreelibrary

New Fiction

  • Ghost Town by Richard W. Jennings
  • Short Girls by Bich Minh Nguyen
  • Riesling Retribution: a Wine Country Mystery by Ellen Crosby
  • Rules of Vengeance by Christopher Reich

  • New Non-Fiction

  • Acceptance: A Legendary Guidance Counselor Helps Seven Kids Find the Right Colleges – and Find Themselves by Dave Marcus
  • Library: An Illustrated History by Stuart Murray
  • New Audiobooks

  • Fire and Ice by Judith Jance
  • New Books

    July 9, 2009 by palisadesfreelibrary

    New Fiction

  • Black Hills by Nora Roberts
  • Free Agent by Jeremy Duns
  • Plague of Secrets by John Lescroart
  • Killer Summer by Ridley Pearson
  • Dying to Meet You by Kate Klise
  • Dark Places by Gillian Flynn
  • Still Alice by Lisa Genova
  • Bird Catcher by Laura Jacobs
  • The Year that Follows by Scott Lasser
  • About Face by Donna Leon
  • Angels Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafron
  • Last Night in Montreal by Emil St. John Mandel
  • Brooklyn by Colm Tobin
  • Strain by Guillermo de Toro
  • Ignorance of Blood by Robert Wilson
  • Embers by Hyatt Bass
  • Fragment by Warren Fahy
  • Obsession by Gloria Vanderbilt
  • Rain Gods by James Lee Burke
  • Jericho’s Fall by Stephen L. Carter
  • Cherry Bomb by Joe Konrath
  • Best Friends Forever by Jennifer Weiner

  • Non-Fiction

  • Mark Bittman’s Kitchen Express by Mark Bittman
  • The Road to Woodstock by Michael Lange
  • The Waxman Report: How Congress Really Works by Henry A. Waxman
  • The End of Overeating by David A Kessler
  • Packing the Court: The Rise of Judicial Power and the Coming
  • Crisis of the Supreme Court by James Macgregor Burns
  • Glenn Beck’s Common Sense by Glenn Beck
  • Real Change by Newt Gingrich
  • Gabriel Garcia Marquez: A Life by Gerald Martin
  • Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art by Laney Salisbury
  • Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture by Ellen Ruppel Shell