Field trips as well as library visits were an essential part of my research. In this book, the reader will hear the voices of the longtime habitués of particular places whose specialized knowledge of various forms of nature revealed facts, secrets, and mysteries I would never have discovered without their helpful tutorials. These include Michael Feller, the former chief naturalist of the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, who accompanied me on numerous expeditions to observe natural phenomena in High Rock Park on Staten Island as well as in several parks in New York City’s other four boroughs; geologist Sidney Horenstein, who carried me back in time through millions of years as we explored bedrock formations in Inwood Hill Park; mycologist Gary Linkoff, who taught me about fungi and invited me to accompany him on a mushroom-hunting expedition in Clove Lakes Park on Staten Island; and Donald Riepe, head of the Northeast Chapter of the American Littoral Society and the Friends of Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, who took me in his boat to explore the marshlands he is helping to restore and sustain. My Central Park education was significantly furthered by geologist Henry Towbin, former Central Park Conservancy director of horticulture Neil Calvanese, former Central Park Conservancy Woodlands Manager Regina Alvarez, ornithologist Joe DiCostanzo, and environmental conservationist and author Roger Pasquier. In terms of history received from firsthand sources, I am grateful to Roosevelt Island historian Judy Berdy, one of the early residents of the “new town in town,” who gave me a great deal of information about the island’s storied past; Ambassador William vanden Heuvel, who explained how his boyhood admiration for Franklin Roosevelt sparked his campaign to create the FDR Memorial and Four Freedoms Park; Sally Minard, current president and CEO of the Four Freedoms Park Conservancy, who explained how this dramatic new addition to the New York cityscape came into being. Regarding the design of New York City’s newest parks, I thank Freshkills Park administrator Eloise Hirsch, who offered me an experiential preview of the plans to convert the city’s largest and final decommissioned landfill into a public park; and Robert Hammond and Joshua David, co-founders of the High Line, who, along with James Corner, Piet Oudoulf, Patrick Cullina, and Thomas Smarr, helped me follow the transformation of this industrial relic into an internationally famous aerial promenade.
No author works alone, and I have been particularly fortunate in having Amanda Urban as my agent, Knopf as my publisher, Ann Close as my editor, and Ellen Feldman as the book’s production editor. I am greatly indebted to them for their professional experience and helpful advice in meeting Knopf’s admirably exacting literary standards. I am also grateful to Sara Cedar Miller and Margaret Oppenheimer for their assistance as readers and advisers before the book was submitted for publication. As always, I thank my husband, Ted Rogers, for his encouragement of this and all my other endeavors. Finally, I am proud to consider myself a member of the Department of Parks & Recreation extended family as well as that of the Central Park Conservancy. Without their duty and dedication to managing the greatest park system in the world, there would be no green metropolis or story of how it came into being.