Landscape Architecture

Architecture: Convicts, Colonnades & National Prestige

October 9, 2026 by Jaap Harskamp 1 Comment

In 1748, twenty-year-old Swiss-born Jacob Sperry arrived in the city of New York from Zurich. Trained as a physician, he abandoned medicine as his real passion was horticulture.

In 1771 he bought a plot of pastureland and turned it into the city’s first botanical garden, growing flowers, hothouse plants, and fruit. Despite its distant location on the city’s northern outskirts, his gardens became a (romantic) destination for weekend walkers and a hub for buying floral arrangements. [Read more…] about Architecture: Convicts, Colonnades & National Prestige

The CCC Helped Preserve Saratoga Battlefield Park

October 8, 2026 by Guest Contributor 1 Comment

You might think that America’s battlegrounds were always seen as sacred, but that wasn’t always the case.

For more than a century after the 1777 Battles of Saratoga what is now the 2,500-acre Saratoga National Historical Park remained what it had been before the battles: private farmland. There were fields and pastures, with a few new buildings. [Read more…] about The CCC Helped Preserve Saratoga Battlefield Park

Landscape & Social Change in Poughkeepsie

May 20, 2026 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

SUNY Press has re-published Main Street to Mainframes: Landscape and Social Change in Poughkeepsie by Harvey K. Flad and Clyde C. Griffen in a Second Edition. A social and urban history of the city on the Hudson River in Dutchess County, NY, tracing its transformation from a 19th-century market town to a 21st-century urban region.

The book examines economic shifts, immigration, race, housing, and revitalization efforts through a blend of social history and spatial analysis, using Poughkeepsie as a case study for broader trends in American small-city development. [Read more…] about Landscape & Social Change in Poughkeepsie

A New Native Species Selection Tool

May 19, 2026 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Are you looking for recommendations of native plants and trees to plant on your specific site? DEC and the New York Natural Heritage Program recently released a Species Selection Tool that provides a list of recommended native tree, shrub, and herbaceous plant species, including flowering species, ferns and herbs, to improve habitats, increase biodiversity, and benefit wildlife across New York State. [Read more…] about A New Native Species Selection Tool

Cellar Holes and Old Foundations

March 27, 2026 by Guest Contributor 2 Comments

As I kneel digging in the dirt of the gently collapsing stone foundation, birds singing, knees aching, and dirt permanently embedded under my fingernails, I try to imagine life here in Vershire, Vermont, in the 1880s.

I’ve been excavating the bottle caches and midden (trash) heaps of this foundation for three years now, sifting artifacts from the soil. I’m trying to assemble the story of the people who lived here 140 years before me, to anchor myself and my partner within a broader continuity of relationship with this land. [Read more…] about Cellar Holes and Old Foundations

Composing Olana: A Journey Through Frederic Church’s Greatest Work of Art

February 25, 2026 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Modeled on her acclaimed On the High Line (now in its third edition from Fordham University Press), Annik LaFarge’s Composing Olana: A Journey on Foot Through Frederic Church’s Greatest Work of Art (Forham, 2026) unfolds as a series of walks along the seven carriage roads Frederic Edwin Church built in 1860s-1880s.

Along the way, LaFarge unpacks the history of everything we see, and much that we don’t, in the greater landscape, from the Ice Age geology that created it to the artists and conservationists who preserved it. [Read more…] about Composing Olana: A Journey Through Frederic Church’s Greatest Work of Art

Adirondack Fragmentation and the Illusion of Green

February 1, 2026 by David Gibson Leave a Comment

At its January meeting, Adirondack Park Agency (APA) staff recommended approval of a seven-lot residential subdivision in a Rural Use zone off Route 73 in Keene, NY (the Aylward project). Staff noted that after several years of work with the applicant the subdivision had been modified from previous layouts to reduce ecological impacts to the area’s natural resources. They pointed out that the impacts of each new home and driveway extended beyond their actual footprint by approximately 660 feet, or 200 meters on all sides of the actual footprint.

This figure comes from field work by Adirondack ecologists Drs. Michale Glennon and Heidi Kretser who, in journals such as Landscape and Urban Planning (January, 2013), described how bird species and small mammals sensitive to human development were displaced up to 200 meters from exurban homes in the Adirondack Park, and that the overall ecological impact of a single exurban home in the Adirondacks extends well beyond the building footprints out to 31 acres. “Understanding these impacts can help inform ecologically sensitive subdivision designs,” wrote Drs. Glennon and Kretser. [Read more…] about Adirondack Fragmentation and the Illusion of Green

Great Camp Santanoni Cultural Landscape Report Planned

January 23, 2026 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Adirondack Architectural Heritage (AARCH) was awarded a $28,825 matching grant from the Environmental Protection Fund’s Park and Trail Partnership Grants program to complete a cultural landscape report of the Camp Santanoni Historic Area.

AARCH has selected Martha Lyon Landscape Architecture, LLC of Northampton, Mass., to develop the Cultural Landscape Report for Camp Santanoni. Cultural landscapes reflect the intersection of the natural environment with human interaction, mapping our relationship with the land over time. [Read more…] about Great Camp Santanoni Cultural Landscape Report Planned

Saratoga Springs’ Nine Horse Racing Tracks

December 15, 2025 by Bill Orzell Leave a Comment

A cursory view of free online aerial imagery displays various race tracks in Saratoga Springs. There are nine locations that appear in the imagery, and each has its own horse racing record.

The overview image displays the nine separate locations, with the track numbering system in chronological order of construction, which represents the geography as we know it now, with illustrations below of what had been. [Read more…] about Saratoga Springs’ Nine Horse Racing Tracks

A New Guide to the Fabulous Fountains of New York

September 29, 2025 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

New York City’s fountains are more than just decorative features — they are historical landmarks, cultural icons, and dynamic works of art that shape the city’s landscape.

In Fabulous Fountains of New York (Fordham University Press, 2025) award-winning author and native New Yorker Stephanie Azzarone takes readers on a captivating journey through the artistry, history, and hidden stories behind these remarkable waterworks. [Read more…] about A New Guide to the Fabulous Fountains of New York

Some Unique National Historical Register Listings in New York

September 15, 2025 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

The New York State Board for Historic Preservation was established in 1972 and expanded by the New York State Historic Preservation Act of 1980. It works with the State Historic Preservation Office to review nominations to the State and National Registers of Historic Places.

In honor of the milestone 200th meeting of the Board for Historic Preservation (on September 10, 2025), below are some of New York’s most interesting resources in the National Register, either as individual sites or as parts of historic districts. [Read more…] about Some Unique National Historical Register Listings in New York

Remembering the British Prison Ship Martyrs of New York City

August 3, 2025 by Editorial Staff 4 Comments

About 11,500 Americans lost their lives aboard British prison ships from 1776 to 1783. More soldiers, sailors and civilians died aboard the prison ships than in all of the Revolutionary War battles combined. It started with the Battle of Brooklyn (the Battle of Long Island).

The City of New York played an important role throughout the American Revolution. Not only was the city an important port of commerce, providing supplies and food to the Continental Army, but it served as a central communications route between the northern and southern states. [Read more…] about Remembering the British Prison Ship Martyrs of New York City

Immigrant Stories: A Rocky Path to Citizenship for a Scot

June 22, 2025 by Constance Barone Leave a Comment

In 1888, William Robert Keay immigrated from Dundee in Scotland to the city of New York, eventually settling on Staten Island where we worked for 12 years as a landscape gardener. In 1899 he, his wife, and seven children moved to Lowville, in Lewis County.

He took a job as head gardener for Charles R. Scott, an underwriter for Equitable Insurance who had purchased a historic home, and “spent about $70,000 re-modelling the house, adding immense verandahs, generally changing the Colonial appearance of the place, adding elaborate stables, greenhouses and gardens.” When Scott died in 1902, his estate was sold to Congressman Charles L Knapp and his head gardener, William Keay, moved on to open his own florist business in the village. [Read more…] about Immigrant Stories: A Rocky Path to Citizenship for a Scot

Brooklyn’s Triumphal Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Arch Restored

June 15, 2025 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Famed architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux designed Grand Army Plaza as the grand entrance to Prospect Park at the time of the Brooklyn park’s creation in 1867.

In 1892, the plaza became the site of the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Arch, dedicated to those who sacrificed their lives defending the United States during the Civil War. [Read more…] about Brooklyn’s Triumphal Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Arch Restored

Garnet Douglass Baltimore: A Troy Trailblazer

May 1, 2025 by Guest Contributor 4 Comments

On this episode of the Minute in New York History podcast, Devin Lander and Lauren Roberts were able to attend the unveiling of the brand-new Garnet Douglass Baltimore historical marker at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy along with Bill Pomeroy, founder of the William G. Pomeroy Foundation. [Read more…] about Garnet Douglass Baltimore: A Troy Trailblazer

Peanut Leap Cascade: The Lawrence–Tonetti Waterfall in Palisades, NY

April 28, 2025 by Clare Sheridan Leave a Comment

On the April 2025 episode of Crossroads of Rockland History the topic of conversation was the Lawrence–Tonetti Waterfall in Palisades, NY.

Also known as Peanut Leap Cascade, this natural waterfall was beautifully enhanced by sculptors Mary Lawrence and Francois Tonetti in the early 20th century by creating stream-fed pools, sculptural fountainheads, and a Roman-style pergola on the shore of the Hudson River. [Read more…] about Peanut Leap Cascade: The Lawrence–Tonetti Waterfall in Palisades, NY

Miyawaki Mini Forests: Revolutionary Reforestation

April 22, 2025 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The Miyawaki mini forest method (also known as pocket forests) was developed by Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki and has been successfully applied, typically on degraded land and without humus, in thousands of places across the globe. [Read more…] about Miyawaki Mini Forests: Revolutionary Reforestation

Historic Preservationists Seek Restoration of Buffalo’s Humboldt Parkway

April 20, 2025 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Constructed at the height of Urban Renewal, Buffalo’s Kensington Expressway tore through neighborhoods and destroyed the Frederick Law Olmsted-designed Humboldt Parkway.

The original Humboldt Parkway was part of a historic system of parks, parkways, and circles designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux in the late 1800s. [Read more…] about Historic Preservationists Seek Restoration of Buffalo’s Humboldt Parkway

George Pratt, Lake George’s ‘Mohawk Warrior’ & Saratoga Springs

March 27, 2025 by Bill Orzell 1 Comment

I was pleased to recently learn through the New York Almanack and Lake George Mirror about the planned restoration of historic sculptures at the Lake George Battlefield Park.

I have a special interest in the “Mohawk Warrior” sculpture produced by Alexander Phimister Proctor and the unique history surrounding this monumental work.

This sculpture was a gift from George D. Pratt, who commissioned the artist. Interestingly, the sculpture was conceived as a component of the planned conception for the New York State Reservation in Saratoga Springs (now known as Saratoga Spa State Park). [Read more…] about George Pratt, Lake George’s ‘Mohawk Warrior’ & Saratoga Springs

Saratoga Springs’ Indian Encampments

March 5, 2025 by Bill Orzell Leave a Comment

The tourism fostered at Saratoga Springs by the mineral waters and baths spawned the spectacle of thoroughbred racing during the nineteenth century and also a clubhouse which operated as a casino. They were exciting diversions for those visiting to take the “water cure.”

With so many tourists at the numerous hotels and boarding houses by virtue of the convenient rail connections, another attraction of sorts was fostered, Indian Encampments which functioned much like carnivals. [Read more…] about Saratoga Springs’ Indian Encampments

Landscape Architecture

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