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Last Undiscovered Place
- Item #: 241
With warmth and a keen eye for the nuances of history and place, former DEP Deputy Commissioner David Leff offers this affectionate, insightful portrait of his adopted home of Collinsville, Connecticut. Situated hard by the Farmington River, the village at first seemed perfectly ordinary - until he fell prey to its rhythms and charm. Landscape designer Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr. lived here at a time when Samuel Collins, founder of The Collins Company, was laying out his ideal village for workers and managers. Leff feels Olmsted's presence as he walks the village's uneven streets, musing on its history, politics, and architecture. Living at the center of Collins's creation years later, Leff has come to believe, like Olmsted, that human beings are deeply affected by their experience of landscape, and that local interaction - between parents and teachers, store owners and customers, bar regulars and volunteer firefighters - matters. Leff argues quietly but forcefully for looking at our landscapes more carefully as he encourages the rediscovery of other places, those that already exist and those that are still on the drawing boards of developers and planners. 247 pages.
