In February of 1994, I was invited to write the first of a series of what turned out to be three books about old railroad lines that were converted to bike-paths [aka rail trails]. 

       They are about New England at-large, one about trails in  New Jersey and one on New York.  The NJ book went into 5 print-runs and is well recieved.  It took 3 years of weekends of research in NJ to pull it off.  While the NY book took about 5 years. All three are pretty detailed in fleshing out the location and meaning of old RR archeology and tidbits along the way.

       I’ve also done two books under the flag of Arcadia Publishing’s “Image of America” series of books.  One on Holyoke—my old hometown and partnering with Jason Clark, one on Florence my current hometown.

      The Holyoke book is notable because it went to six print runs and is among the top sellers of that genre of Arcadia Publishing. It led me to be founding two advocacy organiz-ations in Holyoke.

       One to fight the city on the isssue of muni-sponsored demolitions -- called "Save Historic Holyoke" and the other was "Friends of the Holyoke Canal-Walk." That was set up to help the city move forward, the creation of a linear park, built on the old industrial trackage in the canal district of Holyoke. 

       The public investment of $10Million creating the Canal-Walk has led to over $250 Million other public/private investments in the area.  An arts district is taking hold there.