The events [included] are a bit random but it’s a bit like scanning a front page for the chosen year.”—Dan Wakin, “Perceptive, funny, and nostalgic, E.B. having lived here for years, I’m not immune to the city’s (unique) charm, which There are no original 18th-century novels written in the city… The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon, swastika-adorned zeppelins moored to the top of the Empire State Building, Guys and Dolls and Other Stories by Damon Runyon, The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem, Random Acts of Senseless Violence by Jack Womack, A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED | TERMS OF USE | PRIVACY POLICY | CA Privacy/Info We Collect | CA Do Not Sell My Info. Rose is an odd duck, as restrained as the times are not, working as a police typist in a downtown Manhattan precinct. run wild. A fictionalized version of Mazie Gordon-Phillips, a woman who lived in New York’s downtown area and was dubbed “Queen of the Bowery” for her charity to the homeless and poor who lived nearby. Did you know that there used to be elevated trains running along Bowery and 6th Avenue? (Final note: Stories from Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island are missing from this list. Offer expires in three months, unless otherwise indicated. Unearths the DNA of the city we know and the enduring influence of the Commissioners Plan of 1811.”—Sarah Henry, “Though it’s far from Doctorow’s greatest work—that would be Ragtime or Billy Bathgate—I have a soft spot for a murder mystery that features unsavory journalism, evil doctors, the Tweed Ring, and the aqueducts that turned New York from a smallish city into a world metropolis.”—Justin Davidson, “First written in 1975, this is my classic favorite. This version follows her from her work at a theater downtown to her family’s home out in Coney Island and back to the Lower East Side, to which book depicts her has having a magnetized attraction. Who doesn’t love a story that takes place in a rent-controlled building? discovered through fictional stories set in New York of the past. Coralie Sardie’s father runs a Coney Island freak show where she appears as “the Mermaid,” alongside performers like the Wolfman, the Butterfly Girl, and a one-hundred-year-old turtle. 2. COPYRIGHT © 2020 SIMON & SCHUSTER INC, A CBS COMPANY. To me it is the best people-friendly guide to the city.”—Justin Ferate, "An oldie but goodie. Fitzgerald’s is the classical statement of New York’s romance when seen from afar. Kenneth Jackson, editor of The Encyclopedia of New York City, says that over ten thousand books have been written about the city, including about a hundred a year from 1990 on, so sorting the wheat from the chaff is a daunting task indeed. But boy is it fun to visit them in this lucid, muck-loving prose.”—Justin Davidson, “Author Joseph Mitchell, renowned for his precise and respectful observations, lovingly immortalizes distinctive but often overlooked New Yorkers, including saloon keepers, street preachers, skyscraper-building Mohawks, and the moving personal story of the griot (historian) of Staten Island’s free black community. Odalie is alluring, sexy, and entirely out of place in the masculine world of the cop shop. But for anyone who doesn’t make the trip out there, or anyone who simply loves Coney Island (me! This classic coming-of-age novel is set in Williamsburg, but as the book description calls it, the “slums of Williamsburg.” Today, that’s like an oxymoron—the area has gone through an extreme period of gentrification and is very unlike the humble and industrial area of the city Betty Smith outlines in the book. But I wanted, in my novel Golden Hill, to wind back deliberately to a time that scarcely features in Manhattan’s present iconography, when the giant was a baby. But Violet then talks with the young woman’s aunt, and they become friendly. New York, NY 10036. 1. You must be logged in to add books to your shelf.