Say "Broadway" and most people think of the dozen or so blocks that form the spine of the theater district and go far to define New York. But Broadway is a good deal more than that dazzling patch of neon and LED. It is a long, winding ribbon extending from Lower Manhattan through the Bronx and into the Westchester suburbs north of the city. Some blocks are graceful, many others far from it. Rarely, however, are they dull. In Broadway, his meticulously researched book, Fran Leadon, an architect steeped in New York's heritage, takes us on an invigorating historical stroll along the 13 miles that are the thoroughfare's Manhattan portion. Leadon offers textured snapshots of life as it once was, and sometimes still is, dividing his walk into 13 sections, one for each mile, from Bowling Green near the lower tip of the island to Marble Hill…Leadon is graced with a wry wit. Flashes of it are sprinkled throughout…
Broadway takes us on a mile-by-mile journey that traces the gradual evolution of the seventeenth-century's Brede Wegh, a muddy cow path in a backwater Dutch settlement, to the twentieth century's Great White Way. We learn why one side of the street was once considered more fashionable than the other; witness construction of the Ansonia Apartments, Trinity Church, and the Flatiron Building and the burning of P. T. Barnum's American Museum; and discover that Columbia University was built on the site of an insane asylum. Along the way we meet Alexander Hamilton, Edgar Allan Poe, John James Audubon, Emma Goldman, "Bill the Butcher" Poole, "Texas" Guinan, and the assorted real estate speculators, impresarios, and politicians who helped turn Broadway into a living paradigm of American progress, at its best and worst. Broadway tells the vivid story of what is arguably the world's most famous thoroughfare.
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Broadway: A History of New York City in Thirteen Miles
Broadway takes us on a mile-by-mile journey that traces the gradual evolution of the seventeenth-century's Brede Wegh, a muddy cow path in a backwater Dutch settlement, to the twentieth century's Great White Way. We learn why one side of the street was once considered more fashionable than the other; witness construction of the Ansonia Apartments, Trinity Church, and the Flatiron Building and the burning of P. T. Barnum's American Museum; and discover that Columbia University was built on the site of an insane asylum. Along the way we meet Alexander Hamilton, Edgar Allan Poe, John James Audubon, Emma Goldman, "Bill the Butcher" Poole, "Texas" Guinan, and the assorted real estate speculators, impresarios, and politicians who helped turn Broadway into a living paradigm of American progress, at its best and worst. Broadway tells the vivid story of what is arguably the world's most famous thoroughfare.
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Broadway: A History of New York City in Thirteen Miles
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Broadway: A History of New York City in Thirteen Miles
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Product Details
BN ID: | 2940171417826 |
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Publisher: | HighBridge Company |
Publication date: | 04/17/2018 |
Edition description: | Unabridged |
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