Brooklyn Walking Tour Registration Begins

May 03, 2007

This week, the American Booksellers Association opens registration for its walking tours of literary Brooklyn, a highlight of programming on Wednesday, May 30. The tours, each led by one of the borough's illustrious authors, will focus on the literary, the historic, and, in some cases, the gastronomic delights of this city within a city.

Participation in each tour will be limited to 25 booksellers, and each is expected to fill up quickly, so booksellers should register for tours as soon as possible and choose a first, second, and third option. Open to ABA Bookstore Members only.

ABA programming begins on Wednesday at 2:00 p.m. with a "Welcome to Brooklyn" kickoff event at Hotel ABA, the New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge, featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former Brooklynite, David McCullough (1776, S&S). The noted historian will share insights into significant locales in this "borough of kings," including the Brooklyn Bridge and the Battle of Brooklyn, that will set the stage for the tours to follow.

ABA's walking tours will be run from 3:00 - 5:00 p.m., followed by an Author Reception at Brooklyn Borough Hall, with Borough President Marty Markowitz.

The current tour schedule includes:

• Walking Historic Green-Wood Cemetery With Barnet Schecter: Barnet Schecter, an independent historian based in Manhattan, is the author of The Battle for New York: The City at the Heart of the American Revolution (Penguin) and The Devil's Own Work: The Civil War Draft Riots and the Fight to Reconstruct America (Walker & Co.) The Battle of Brooklyn was the largest engagement of the American Revolution and the first battle in U.S. history. This tour will take us to Battle Hill, where some of the fiercest fighting took place. Along the way, Schecter will explain why the city was regarded by both sides as the greatest strategic prize -- the "Key to the whole Continent," according to John Adams. During the Civil War, opposition to President Lincoln's policies erupted in some of the worst riots in American history. Schecter will take us to the graves of some key figures at the time of the draft riots, including Horace Greeley and William "Boss" Tweed.
  

• Walking Fort Greene With Adrienne Onofri: Adrienne Onofri is a travel and theater writer, licensed NYC tour guide, and author of the brand-new book Walking Brooklyn (Wilderness Press, 2007). This tour will walk to Fort Greene, an attractive and vibrant neighborhood, with beautiful brownstone-lined streets. Stops will include a park designed by Olmsted and Vaux (of Central Park fame); the Brooklyn Academy of Music and other cultural hot spots; Brooklyn's only skyscraper, the Williamsburgh Savings Bank; and sites involved in the American Revolution and Underground Railroad. Literary connections will include Walt Whitman, Richard Wright, and Marianne Moore.
  

• Walking Literary Brooklyn With Peter Charles Melman: Peter Charles Melman is the author of Landsman (Counterpoint Press, June 2007). Join the Brooklyn-based novelist as he guides a two-mile tour showcasing Brooklyn Heights' majestic views of lower Manhattan and brownstones inhabited -- both past and present -- by some of America's finest literary names, including Miller (Arthur & Henry), Truman Capote, Carson McCullers, Norman Mailer, and more. Bottled water and guide booklets included.
  

• Children's Booksellers Tour #1: Walking Cobble Hill & Boerum Hill With Emily Jenkins: Emily Jenkins' books include two Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honor Books, Five Creatures (Frances Foster Books/FSG), That New Animal (Frances Foster Books/FSG), and Toys Go Out (Random House/Schwartz & Wade). This tour will visit the Cobble Hill and Boerum Hill neighborhoods featured in her forthcoming book, What Happens on Wednesdays (Frances Foster Books/FSG). The neighborhood is also home to a number of other children's book creators and entertainers, including Tad Hills and Dan Zanes, and many noted adult writers, including Jonathan Lethem and Christopher Sorrentino. Each bookseller on the tour will receive a copy of What Happens on Wednesdays, compliments of FSG.
  

• Walking Downtown Brooklyn With Robert Sullivan: Robert Sullivan is the author of Cross Country: Fifteen Years and 90,000 Miles on the Roads and Interstates of America with Lewis and Clark, a lot of bad motels, a moving van, Emily Post, ... kids, and enough coffee to kill an elephant and Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants (both Bloomsbury). Tour downtown Brooklyn. See (or try to) the ghosts of Walt Whitman and the old Brooklyn Eagle Press and stand where Leaves of Grass was printed. Walk along one of the oldest little streets in New York ... a last vestige of George Washington's first strategic retreat in the first battle of the U.S. Army. See the vestige of the trolley that Dodger fans dodged. Be one of the crowd, just as others are of the crowd, to paraphrase Whitman himself.
  

• Walking Literary Brooklyn Heights With Sherill Tippins: Sherill Tippins is the author of February House (Houghton Mifflin). This tour will lead you to Brooklyn Heights and tiny Middagh Street, where W.H. Auden served as housemother to Carson McCullers, Paul and Jane Bowles, Benjamin Britten, and Peter Pears, editor George Davis, and stripper Gypsy Rose Lee. See the little firehouse whose clanging engines sparked Carson's crucial "illumination" for The Member of the Wedding; enjoy the same spectacular views that greeted Auden as he scribbled the lines to "In Sickness and Health;" see the homes and haunts of Arthur Miller, Norman Mailer, Truman Capote, Walt Whitman, Hart Crane, and other local denizens. The tour will end on the Brooklyn waterfront, where participants can enjoy an ice cream cone in lieu of the old sailor-bar gin-and-tonics once served by the amazonian bartender immortalized in Carson's Ballad of the Sad Cafe.
  
  
• Famous Brooklyn Food Tour: Junior's Restaurant With Alan Rosen and Bruce Feiler: Alan Rosen is the author of the upcoming Junior's Cheesecake Cookbook (Taunton Press, October 2007). Harry Rosen opened Junior's Restaurant in Brooklyn in 1950. With a counter, a small bakery and a "big struggle," Rosen, who lived to the age of 92, captained his "Most Fabulous Restaurant" to legendary heights. It became the most popular restaurant in Brooklyn among regular folk and celebrities such as Norman Mailer, Barbra Streisand, and a host of others. According to the Wall Street Journal, New York magazine and people around the country, it is also home to the nation's most mouth-watering cheesecake. Join us at this historic landmark to meet third-generation co-owner Alan Rosen for a fascinating look back at the restaurant's history, a cooking demonstration of New York Style Cheesecake and, of course, a tasting of their world-famous cakes. The group will be escorted by Brooklyn resident Bruce Feiler (Where God Was Born, Walking the Bible, Abraham, Harper Perennial), who knows a thing or two about walking through some unusual and interesting neighborhoods!
  
  
• Brooklyn Bridge Tour With Kevin Baker: Kevin Baker, author of the City of Fire trilogy of historical novels about New York City -- Dreamland, Paradise Alley, and Strivers Row -- will lead a walking tour over the Brooklyn Bridge, the world's first great suspension bridge. Participants will be treated to a sweeping view of Brooklyn, Manhattan's downtown and East Side, and New York harbor. The chief historical researcher on Harold Evans' bestselling history, The American Century (Knopf), and a regular monthly columnist for American Heritage magazine, Baker will provide insight on Walt Whitman and his epic work, "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry"; the story of what was the busiest harbor in the world from 1830 - 1960, and what happened to it; and the great American politician who claimed to be the first person ever to cross the bridge. The tour will conclude by crossing over to Manhattan, for a look at the Tweed Courthouse, one of the most ingenious pieces of graft in New York's history; the house that used to hold the most notorious rat-baiting pit in town, and refreshments at one of the historic establishments near the South Street Seaport.

More tour details and an online registration form are available on BookWeb.org. Watch for announcements about additional tours in upcoming editions of BTW.

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