Millions of people in New York and New Jersey consider the Hudson River as familiar as their own backyard yet only have a superficial knowledge of the landscape and land use of this river's waterfront. This beautiful book deepens readers' understanding with an aerial portrait of the river's shores from the Battery, at the southernmost tip of Manhattan, to the river's origin near Albany.
Focusing on man-made sites rarely seen by those who travel along the river's banks some of which can only be seen aerially the book showcases the shore area's vanishing (or vanished) avenues, prisons, power plants, quarries, parks, condos, and redevelopments. Up River's photos and accompanying succinct text tell the story of how this river was used in developing industry and modern America from Revolutionary times through 19th-century exploitation of the waterfront to the beginnings of environmental activism that protects famous vistas from the quarriers of the Palisades.