The Almanac of New York City

by Kenneth Jackson (Editor), Fred Kameny (Editor), Sam Roberts (Foreword by)

Overview

The Almanac of New York City is an innovative companion for urban enthusiasts. Nowhere else will you find the name of the city's first comptroller (Selah Strong) and Staten Island's most recently designated historic district (Our Lady of Mount Carmel Grotto) next to the city's best-attended cultural institution (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, with five million visitors annually) and its lowest recorded temperature (15 degrees below zero in February 1934). The Almanac identifies the borough with the most residents who relocate to Palm Beach (Queens) and the borough with the highest number of Panamanian immigrants (Brooklyn). It lists where New York currently ranks in the cost of apartment rentals, the rate of obesity in each borough, the details of executions dating back to 1639, per capita income by borough, the longest-running Broadway shows, the winners of the Wanamaker Mile, and the location of celebrated grave sites. Compiled by two longtime historians of the city, The Almanac treats readers to a real New York story, a tale that will delight anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the Big Apple's complex core.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231140638
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	10/17/2008
Pages:	528
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Kenneth T. Jackson is director of the Herbert H. Lehman Center for American History and Jacques Barzun Professor of History at Columbia University. He is a former president of the New-York Historical Society and is editor in chief of The Encyclopedia of New York City.A native of New York City, Fred Kameny received his undergraduate degree at Columbia University and a law degree from the University of North Carolina. He is currently the managing editor of Duke University Press.

Table of Contents

Categories:
Population
Public Health and Safety
Housing and Real Estate
Crime and Justice
Business, Economy, and Labor
Arts and Letters
Sports
Government and Politics
Transportation
Education
Environment
Religion
Social Services
Memorials and Monuments

What People are Saying About This

Ric Burns

Anyone fascinated by the hidden algebra of urban life will find this volume indispensable. Swarming beneath the city's multitudinous millions is another sea of numbers, and this book has them: statistical summaries, records, census data, employment figures, and revenue totals, along with a stunning host of firsts, longests, and mosts spanning every conceivable kind of activity in the city—all together a remarkable statistical and demographic summary of New York across the years.

— Ric Burns, documentary filmmaker

Ed Koch

The Almanac of New York City is a roll call of New York's most important facts and statistics. When mastered, it will provide every candidate who possesses it with an advantage in any election. It will also make you king of the hill when it comes to New York City's relevant data. Only a historian with the credentials of Kenneth T. Jackson and his colleague, Fred Kameny, former executive editor of the Encyclopedia of New York City, could have selected this essential information. You'll be carrying this book with you and answering any questions about New York before your computer can.

— Ed Koch, former New York City mayor

Editorial Reviews

More than a mere miscellany of statistics and figures... Recommended.

Choice

A marvelous example of an information source that provides the facts and figures one knows one wants and also offers enough of the quirky, unexpected, and engaging information to pull readers into finding things they never thought they needed to know.

Booklist

Despite its title, this Gotham "almanac" tells little about astronomy or meteorological patterns. Instead, it's packed with obscure (but fascinating) data from a city long considered one of the nation's public faces. This one-stop guide to New York statistical information-including public officials' salaries and by-borough obesity rates-is divided into 14 chapters. From population and health-related figures to the materials used in public monuments, no detail that contributes to the definition of New York has escaped Jackson (Crabgrass Frontier) and Kameny (coauthor, There Goes the Neighborhood). Recommended for cultural and urban studies collections.

—Savannah Schroll Guz

Library Journal

A marvelous example of an information source that provides the facts and figures one knows one wants and also offers enough of the quirky, unexpected, and engaging information to pull readers into finding things they never thought they needed to know.

Booklist