Published: August 29, 2008 02:50 pm            

BOOK REVIEW: Text explores New York oddities

Everyone knows about Niagara Falls and the Statue of Liberty, but a new book details the many oddities that occupy the remainder of the Empire State.

Cindy Perlman’s “New York Curiosities” covers some 100 unique towns, structures and events, many of which were somehow left off the “I Love New York” brochure.

Broken down into sections, the book discusses oddities in each section of the state, starting west and heading downstate. Plenty of pictures and an easy-to-follow format ensure the reader stays interested — although the content would pretty much do that regardless.

The book’s first entry outlines the history of the National Chicken Wing Festival in Buffalo. Although the Buffalo-Niagara area is best known for poultry, Perlman calls the beef on weck sandwich the real reason to visit Western New York and explains why the food is hard to find elsewhere (the weck roll is hard to bake and has a short shelf life).

Other local curiosities Perlman mentioned include the Jell-O Gallery in LeRoy — the birthplace of the dessert — the invention of the windshield wiper in Buffalo and the shoe trees of Lyndonville. She also explains how science backs the Falls’ claim as the “Honeymoon Capital of the World” — negative ions in the air are released by the falling water, and once in the human bloodstream the ions increase seratonin production, creating an energy boost and euphoric feeling.

Some of Perlman’s discoveries outside of WNY have local roots, such as Sam Patch, the Rochester native who in the 1800s became the first well-known daredevil and twice survived trips over Niagara Falls. Binghamton’s claim as the “Carousel Capital of the World” may irk some people in North Tonawanda, meanwhile, but each of that city’s six carousels were built by Allan Herschell in the Lumber City.

Not all of the state’s idiosyncrasies have a local feel, though. Lake Placid features a federal prison that started life as the Olympic village during the 1980 winter games there, while Ithaca business and residents have their own currency, Ithaca Hours, that’s given for interest-free loans to city residents.

Perlman does an excellent job of breaking down a lot of material into a fairly concise format, although her writing relies a bit too much on trying to be funny (references to Brooklyn, for example, are written in “Brooklyn-speak” with the dropped “R” and “awk” replacing “ork”). She also gets minor demerits for misspelling the last name of Orleans County historian C.W. Lattin, although confusion is justifiable considering his name shares a pronunciation with an entire language.

This is hardly enough to detract from “New York Curiosities,” which contains plenty of material to entertain and educate even the people who have spent their lives here.

Contact editor Paul Laneat 693-1000, ext. 116.



IF YOU READ

• WHAT: “New York Curiosities”

• BY: Cindy Perman

• DETAILS: Published by The Globe Pequot Press, 328 pages

• GRADE: A-

        

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