Melanie Zimmer

Forgotten Tales of New York Melanie Zimmer

Few New Yorkers remember the night when firemen, in tuxedos and top hats, were dragged from a ball to extinguish at Waterloo blaze, or the typographical error that reported Theodore Roosevelt taking a 'bath' instead of his presidential 'oath.' Still fewer remember Cephas Bennett, a missionary from Utica and printer of the first Burmese Bible, or H. L. Mencken's humorous article on the history of the bathtub, still quoted today as factual although entirely invented. Seasoned storyteller Melanie Zimmer seamlessly these hare-to-believe, yet entirely true, tales. From the monster of Seneca Lake to the man who inspired the American icon Uncle Sam, discover the lost secrets of the Empire State.