Bloomfield Through Time (America Through Time)

Great book for a gift. Loved the pictures and the memories they brought back.

I'm buying this for 2nd time.My Historical Society has 1rst one.Its every history buffs go to about Morris Canal & Bloomfield. I hope a second one is in the making .Most extensive read with pictures on my childhood hometown to date

This wonderful and extensively-researched book shows what many places in Bloomfield looked like 100 years or more ago, and what they look like today. Sadly, many of Bloomfield's architectural treasures of the past have been lost to development or obscured by renovation. Still, this is a fascinating tour through the Bloomfield of yesteryear that gives the reader a glimpse of what life may have been like in a much different time. As I browsed thru the photos in the book I sometimes found it hard to believe that this is what Bloomfield once looked like but at the same time wished I could step into a time machine to go back and see it all with my own eyes.Rich Rockwell has given several well-received presentations under the auspices of the Historical Society of Bloomfield using some of this material, but this book greatly expands upon those lectures. Anyone who enjoyed Rich's presentations will love this book! In fact, this book has been so enthusiastically received that it was one of the top 10 bestsellers for the year at one of the local booksellers despite not being released until late September."Bloomfield Through Time" is not only a eye-opening tour of the past; it also serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving our local architectural and cultural history. In keeping with the spirit of historic preservation, Rich Rockwell donates all proceeds from the sale of "Bloomfield Through Time" to the Friends of the Morris Canal Greenway, an organization devoted to preserving vestiges of the Morris Canal that once ran through Bloomfield and the historic Collins House located adjacent to the former route of the Morris Canal.

From America the Beautiful to America the Cheap and Tawdry. Each generation since the end of World War I has done its assiduous best to make us the ugly place we are today. Scott Fitzgerald wrote of it in The Great Gatsby; Harper Lee wrote of the boys returning from the second war painting the dignified homes of Maycomb (Monroeville, Al) in gaudy colors and whitewashing the old brick stores downtown; and now Richard Rockwell gives us the hard photographic evidence.Even the people have gotten uglier: just look at America's 21st century citizen - grandmas in shorts, young people in faded and ill-fitting blue jeans, frumpy thirty-somethings waddling through ugly stores like Walmart, fat people in their twenties and even at college. We are a people without any sense of tradition, and it shows all over in our hideous cities and towns today.