One Man's Journey: A Walk on the Croton Aqueduct Trail

One Man's Journey: A Walk on the Croton Aqueduct Trail is Ed Perratore's informative, reflective and often humorous account of hikes he took on the Old Croton Aqueduct Trail, which extends 26 miles from Croton-on-Hudson in Westchester County to the Bronx border. The trail is rich in history, from the aqueduct's construction in the 1840s to its decommission in 1955, and he relates its story piece by fascinating piece. Perratore also explores the many towns and villages through which the aqueduct and, since 1970, its trail pass through on the way to what is today New York City's Bryant Park, once a reservoir built to serve the young metropolis.

One Man's Journey, however, is also a deeply personal, introspective work that will touch every reader. Two threads of Perratore's musings run throughout. In the first, he attempts to achieve some balance in a hectic suburban home life with his wife and two then-teenage children, a demanding job and the unyielding assault of the day-to-day "gottas." At the same time, he looks back on his first hikes on the trail, getting away when he can between doctor appointments with his ailing, 80-year-old father. Both subjects, present and past, are rife with universal themes, and Perratore's revelations are those of us all.

This book, by and large, is a celebration of the region and the lifeblood it supplied at a time in history that New York City was plagued by fire and illness owing to insufficient and unclean water. From the haunting forests of Sleepy Hollow to the concrete and asphalt of Ossining and Yonkers, One Man's Journey is a story of the area's rich diversity of terrain, lifestyle and culture. Readers won't easily forget having joined his trek.