Gale A. Brewer

"Saved at the Seawall is the greatest 9/11 story you've never heard. Jessica DuLong's impressive, vital work has preserved one of 9/11's most dramatic and least-known stories. Now future generations will forever know of the courage and spirit of New York's mariners." ― Garrett Graff, author of The Only Plane in the Sky Saved at the Seawall is the definitive history of the largest ever waterborne evacuation. Jessica DuLong reveals the dramatic story of how the New York Harbor maritime community heroically delivered stranded commuters, residents, and visitors out of harm's way. Even before the US Coast Guard called for "all available boats," tugs, ferries, dinner boats, and other vessels had sped to the rescue from points all across New York Harbor. In less than nine hours, captains and crews transported nearly half a million people from Manhattan. Anchored in eyewitness accounts and written by a mariner who served at Ground Zero, Saved at the Seawall weaves together the personal stories of people rescued that day with those of the mariners who saved them. DuLong describes the inner workings of New York Harbor and reveals the collaborative power of its close-knit community. Her chronicle of those crucial hours, when hundreds of thousands of lives were at risk, highlights how resourcefulness and basic human goodness triumphed over turmoil on one of America's darkest days. Initially published as Dust to Deliverance, this edition, released in time for the twentieth anniversary, contains new updates: a preface by DuLong and a foreword by Mitchell Zuckoff.

Inwood, the northernmost neighborhood of Manhattan, has a rich yet little-known history. For centuries, the region remained practically unchanged - a quaint, country village known to early Dutch settlers as Tubby Hook. The subway's arrival in the early 1900s transformed the area, once scorned as "ten miles from a beefsteak," from farm to city virtually overnight. The same construction boom sparked an age of neighborhood self-discovery, when vestiges of the past - in the form of mastodon bones, arrowheads, colonial pottery, Revolutionary War cannonballs, and forgotten cemeteries - emerged from the earth. Waves of German, Irish, and Dominican immigrants subsequently produced a vibrant urban oasis with a big-city/small-town feel. Inwood has also been home to wealthy country estates, pre-integration sports arenas, and a lively waterfront culture. Famous residents have included NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Basketball Diaries author Jim Carroll, and Hamilton creator/star Lin-Manuel Miranda.