By John Byron Kuhner
Essay
Kuhner ferries the reader across New York Harbor to the island that stands forever in Manhattan's shadow. His Staten Island is haunted by the ghosts of Whitman and Thoreau, Dante and Garibaldi, Washington and Burr, and the decay of our ideals amidst the mounds of our garbage. A sentimental education in love, liberty, and gratitude, Staten Island offers a moving portrait of New York's fifth borough from its earliest days to the present.
An edition of 250 copies with a fold-out map and original illustrations by Lesley Chen. Read the Press Release.
From the text:
"I found that in the end it was little use to mourn over the past, except to remind myself of the virtues I needed in the present. Almost all the land in the boroughs has now been ploughed over and sown with a human crop. From Fort Totten to Tottenville and from Rockaway to Riverdale is now a patchwork quilt of fields, where are growing the men and women of the future. Here they are being born, and here they will live and die and be buried. Most of us would rather visit Manhattan, but that is not a place where men are born or buried much anymore; for that one looks to places such as Staten Island."
Publication info:
An edition of 250
Date: October 2010
ISBN: 978-0-9796969-7-6
Binding: Saddle-stitch with archival thread, dust-jacket, foldout map
Papers: Canson Mi-Teintes, Fabriano Murillo, Mohawk Pegasus, Neenah Environment
Size: 6.25" x 8.5"
Pages: 64