A History of New York in 27 Buildings: The 400-Year Untold Story of an American Metropolis

by Sam Roberts

Overview

From the urban affairs correspondent of the New York Times—the story of a city through twenty-seven structures that define it.

As New York is poised to celebrate its four hundredth anniversary, New York Times correspondent Sam Roberts tells the story of the city through bricks, glass, wood, and mortar, revealing why and how it evolved into the nation's biggest and most influential.

From the seven hundred thousand or so buildings in New York, Roberts selects twenty-seven that, in the past four centuries, have been the most emblematic of the city's economic, social, and political evolution. He describes not only the buildings and how they came to be, but also their enduring impact on the city and its people and how the consequences of the construction often reverberated around the world.

A few structures, such as the Empire State Building, are architectural icons, but Roberts goes beyond the familiar with intriguing stories of the personalities and exploits behind the unrivaled skyscraper's construction. Some stretch the definition of buildings, to include the city's oldest bridge and the landmark Coney Island Boardwalk. Others offer surprises: where the United Nations General Assembly first met; a hidden hub of global internet traffic; a nondescript factory that produced billions of dollars of currency in the poorest neighborhood in the country; and the buildings that triggered the Depression and launched the New Deal.

With his deep knowledge of the city and penchant for fascinating facts, Roberts brings to light the brilliant architecture, remarkable history, and bright future of the greatest city in the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781620409800
Publisher:	Bloomsbury USA
Publication date:	10/22/2019
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	210,345
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Sam Roberts is the Urban Affairs correspondent of the New York Times. He hosts The New York Times Close Up, which he inaugurated in 1992, and the podcasts Only in New York, anthologized in a book of the same name, and The Caucus. He is the author of A History of New York in 101 Objects and Grand Central: How a Train Station Transformed America, among others. He has written for the New York Times Magazine, the New Republic, and New York. He lives in New York with his wife and two sons.

Table of Contents

Timeline xi

Introduction 1

1 The Bowne House 6

2 St. Paul's Chapel 15

3 Federal Hall 22

4 City Hall 32

5 Domino Sugar Refinery 45

6 Tweed Courthouse 53

7 The Marble Palace 64

8 21 Stuyvesant Street 75

9 The High Bridge 83

10 123 Lexington Avenue 93

11 Pier A 102

12 The IRT Powerhouse 110

13 The Bossert Hotel 119

14 The Asch Building 131

15 The Flatiron Building 141

16 The Lyceum Theater 151

17 Sixty-Ninth Regiment Armory 161

18 The American Bank Note Plant 169

19 Grand Central Terminal 178

20 The Apollo 187

21 The Coney Island Boardwalk 197

22 Bank of United States 207

23 The Empire State Building 220

24 The Hunter College Gymnasium 229

25 First Houses 241

26 134 East Sixtieth Street 251

27 60 Hudson Street 261

Epilogue 270

Acknowledgments 273

Index 275

Editorial Reviews

09/16/2019

New York Times urban affairs correspondent Roberts (A History of New York in 101 Objects) delivers a lively history of 27 architectural structures symbolic of New York City’s progression from Dutch colony to urban colossus. Chosen for their importance to the city’s economic, political, and cultural evolution, these 27 “buildings” include High Bridge, the oldest standing bridge linking Manhattan to the U.S. mainland; First Houses, the nation’s first low-income public housing project; and the Coney Island Boardwalk. Roberts’s selections range from the legendary (the Flatiron Building; Grand Central Terminal) to the obscure (123 Lexington Ave., the brownstone where Chester Arthur was sworn in as U.S. president after the assassination of James Garfield in 1881). Some have been preserved (the Bowne House in Queens, site of an important chapter in America’s history of religious freedom), while others have been stripped of nearly everything but their exteriors (the Bronx branch of Bank of United States , where a bank run in December 1929 helped to kick off the Great Depression). Though Roberts can occasionally get bogged down in the details, he proves to be a witty and informed narrator whose enthusiasm for his subject is contagious. This lucid account will help New Yorkers to see their city in a new light. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"A nuanced, richly researched book that delves deep into the history of the city and speaks volumes about its past, present and future . . . a must-read as the metropolis, now almost 400 years old, continues to (re)shape itself and the world." - NPR.org

"Fun facts abound in A History of New York in 27 Buildings . . . An enjoyable portrait of New York as embodied in 27 key landmarks of its built environment." - Newsday

“[Roberts] offers a solid education in New York architecture that pays close attention to the personalities, politics, economics, and natural disasters that inevitably accompany it . . . An entertaining picture of New York through the centuries.” —Kirkus

"Dynamism beyond conventional wisdom and guidebooks." - National Book Review

“[Roberts is] a witty and informed narrator whose enthusiasm for his subject is contagious. This lucid account will help New Yorkers to see their city in a new light.” —Publishers Weekly

"Roberts’s wide-ranging historical research and storytelling skills should captivate New Yorkers and others." - Library Journal

“A gripping account . . . [An] excellent book, written with flair and alive with the agony of the age.” —The Wall Street Journal on THE BROTHER

“[Sam Roberts] is a deft writer able to weave science, history, and criminal investigation into an absorbing narrative that at times reads like a spy thriller—even if you know how the story ends.” —Boston Globe on THE BROTHER

“Lively, entertaining . . . An original and knowledgeable guide to the history of New York [that] reminds us of why we continue to love and treasure this endlessly fascinating city.” —Francine Prose on A HISTORY OF NEW YORK IN 101 OBJECTS

“The best thing to happen to New York since Nathan's hot dogs and Junior's cheesecake.” —Marty Markowitz, former Borough President of Brooklyn on A HISTORY OF NEW YORK IN 101 OBJECTS

“A thorough, lively analysis. With wit—and a wary eye for the manipulative uses to which statistics are put in politics and the marketplace—[Roberts] illuminates the forces driving the nation's social-policy debates.” —The New York Times on WHO WE ARE NOW

“[A] fabulous collection of essays. With wit and grace, he tells stories of its citizens—some illustrious, others not; some living, others long dead. But the story he's really telling is that of New York, and he nails it.” —New York Daily News on ONLY IN NEW YORK

From the Publisher

2019-08-18
A series of biographies of significant New York City buildings that "have been transcendent in some way."

Despite the title, this is the history of 27 structures, although a great deal of New York's past makes an appearance. "Can collective conglomerations of bricks, glass, wood, steel, and mortar reveal the soul of a city?" Definitely, writes Roberts (Only in New York: An Exploration of the World's Most Fascinating, Frustrating and Irrepressible City, 2018, etc.), the former urban affairs correspondent of the New York Times. The author offers a solid education in New York architecture that pays close attention to the personalities, politics, economics, and natural disasters that inevitably accompany it. Eschewing the commonplace, Roberts begins with the oldest house, which is in Queens. Built in 1661 when the city was Dutch, it was home to John Bowne, a Quaker preacher and source of a petition, signed by a group of neighbors, objecting to director-general Peter Stuyvesant's order banning Quakers. The author points out that this is a foundational document of American freedom written over a century before the Bill of Rights (also born in New York). Even educated readers will identify only a minority of Roberts' choices, including St. Paul's Chapel, City Hall, the Flatiron Building, Tweed Courthouse, Empire State Building, Grand Central Terminal, and the Apollo Theater. A laundromat was once a branch of Bank of the United States. Notwithstanding the name, it was a private institution whose collapse in 1931 launched the banking crisis which, perhaps more than the 1929 stock market crash, converted a normal recession into the Great Depression. New York's poorest district, the South Bronx, hosted the huge American Bank Note Plant, which churned out currency, stamps, and stock securities for nations around the world. It moved away in the early 1980s; the building remains as a landmark, and the area is prospering.

Though not a cohesive narrative, these isolated journalistic essays provide an entertaining picture of New York through the centuries.

Kirkus Reviews