Explore the rich history of Brentwood in this guided tour through its most fascinating historic and modern buildings.

Explore the rich history of Brentwood in this guided tour through its most fascinating historic and modern buildings.

Roughly 40 miles from New York City and in the center of Long Island, Brentwood has always been an area undergoing struggle, change, and development. From its founding under the name Modern Times by the anarchists Josiah Warren and Steven Pearl Andrews in 1852 to its rapid and extensive growth as a suburban bedroom community in the 20th century, Brentwood has a rich history. In the first half of the 20th century, the Long Island Rail Road ushered in Irish, Italian, and Russian families that influenced the once utopian society; by the century's end, Brentwood would be home to a notable Hispanic diaspora community. The construction of St. Joseph's Convent, Pilgrim State Psychiatric Hospital, and the Brentwood School District brought jobs to the area and bolstered population growth.

“I suppose I can’t expect to keep you under lock and key. You’re hardly a criminal. . .are you?” It takes a criminal to catch one, and Nicholas Brentwood is just the man for the job. Reformed in more ways than one, the rough-around-the-edges Brentwood is a member of the Bow Street Runners, London’s early nineteenth-century fledgling police force. There’s none better than Brentwood at catching the felons who ravage the city’s streets, and there’s nothing he loves more than seeing justice served. Beautiful and beguiling, Miss Emily Payne is not the sort of miscreant Brentwood usually hunts down. When he is assigned as her bodyguard, he vows to protect her from her father’s enemies, who will stop at nothing to carry out their mission fueled by greed and revenge. All her life, Emily has longed for love, but it remains beyond her grasp. This season she’s determined to find a husband, which is quite the undertaking with a hound-dog guardian like Brentwood watching her every step. If he would just give her some measure of freedom, she is sure she could win the heart of society’s most eligible bachelor. Emily’s headstrong persistence challenges Nicholas in ways he doesn’t expect but of one thing he’s certain—of all the cunning criminals he’s dealt with in the past, this time he’s met his match.

Take a captivating look back at the history of Barking & Dagenham through a fascinating collection of beautiful old photographs.

It¿s all quiet now on the eastern front of the American gaming industry-Atlantic City, New Jersey-but for five chaotic years, real estate developer Richard ¿Skip¿ Bronson was at the white-hot center of a titanic clash of money and power that transformed Atlantic City from a struggling day-tripper place with buses in and out to a born again destination drawing tourists from New York, Philadelphia, and other major cities along the eastern seaboard.From 1995 to 2000, two of the world¿s best-known companies- Mirage Resorts and Trump Resorts-run by two of the most flamboyant businessmen of our time, fought a bare-knuckled, high-stakes battle over a prime piece of real estate in one of America¿s most famous resort towns. No money was spared, no punch was pulled, no invective went unhurled in "The War at the Shore." Now Bronson, who was a member of the board of directors of Mirage and president of New City Development Company, the Mirage subsidiary whose primary purpose was to build a top-level new casino and hotel complex in Atlantic City, tells the inside story of this epic struggle.Along the way, Bronson weaves in fascinating and inspiring anecdotes from his complicated past: A product of a fractured family and city-owned housing project in Hartford, Connecticut; former paperboy, spelling bee champion yet college dropout; and prolific developer of shopping centers and office buildings-including CityPlace, Connecticut¿s tallest skyscraper, Bronson embodies the self-made business success story. Gripping from beginning to end, The War at the Shore is a rare up-close look at the world of casino development and the essential modern chapter in the history of America¿s ¿Boardwalk Empire.¿

Essex - the witch hunting county - is especially rich in traditions, legends, dialect and stories that have been handed down through the ages. It is these traditions that are gathered together in this volume and whose origins and meanings are explored to create a sense of how the customs of the past have influenced the ways of the present. This fully illustrated study of folklore rediscovers those traditions that have either vanished, been ignored or hidden away. There are tales of dragons and warriors, literary folk and legendary folk, but always at the heart of Essex folklore are the traditional beliefs, stories, events and customs of the common people. Daily life itself contained numerous beliefs and maxims, omens and superstitions, as well as being full of music, dance and song.

One of the great architects of our time, Frank Gehry has revolutionized the use of materials in design and redefined how architects use computers as a design tool to advance form-making as we know it. He has achieved worldwide fame for such large-scale public projects as the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, California, but it was in private houses that Gehry first explored and interrogated the principles of modern architecture. In these houses—most notably his own, in Santa Monica, California—Gehry distorted, expanded, and collapsed the modernist box, exploring everyday materials (corrugated metal, unfinished plywood, and chain link), experimenting with color, and challenging accepted notions about geometry and structure. In houses such as the Schnabel House in Brentwood, California, and the Winton Guest House in Wayzata, Minnesota, he experimented with collage and assemblage. More recently, Gehry’s work has taken on sculptural forms, aided by new structural and geometric potentials of digital design, as in the near-legendary Lewis House in Lyndhurst, Ohio. Color photographs, sketches, and plans create an illuminating visual record of some of the most groundbreaking, seminal projects of Gehry’s oeuvre.

From “Grand Hotel” to “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?,” Joan Crawford played some of the finest parts Hollywood had to offer, establishing a reputation as the most spectacular diva on the silver screen. Even when the cameras quit rolling, her life never stopped being over-the-top. In My Way of Life, a cult classic since it was first published in the early 1970’s, Crawford shares her secrets. Part memoir, part self-help book, part guide to being fabulous, My Way of Life advises the reader on everything from throwing a small dinner party for eighteen to getting the most out of a marriage. Featuring tips on fashion, makeup, etiquette and everything in between, it is an irresistible look at a bygone era, when movie stars were pure class, and Crawford was at the top of the heap.