Picturing New York

by Deak, Gloria-Gilda

• ISBN13: 9780231107280
• ISBN10: 0231107285
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-06-01
• Publisher: Columbia Univ Pr

Summary

As every reader knows, New York defies any single attempt to take its measure. Here is a unique approach: a single-volume, thematically organized history of the city filled with prints, paintings, and photographs -- many in full color -- that make the book a feast for the eye.The book consists of fourteen mini-histories, each of which can be read independently of the others. The author explores the city's multiple birth (it was named and renamed five times, and was originally known as Angoulême, not as New Amsterdam as most people believe). Deák covers the religious pluralism the city enjoyed as a scruffy Atlantic trading post, the marketing and merchandising that propelled its development, and the rise of the arts, literature, architecture, and sports. Throughout, the author attempts to answer the beguiling question: Was New York unique from the beginning?Readers will find: The map recording the visit of the explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano to Manhattan Island, circa 1540 The print depicting the defensive barricade, built in 1653 by Dutch governor Peter Stuyvesant, which gave Wall Street its name Artists' renditions of a bucolic ninteenth-century Brooklyn -- before bridges transformed it into an extension of the Manhattan megalopolis An 1892 planning sketch of the Grand Concourse, the Bronx's principal boulevard, intended to simulate the grandeur of Parisian roadways and ultimately to outclass Manhattan.Comments from observers as diverse as Alexis de Tocqueville, Frances Trollope, Fanny Kemble, Charles Dickens, Sarah Bernhardt, Leon Trotsky, Fernand Leger, and W. H. Auden create an immediate sense of time and place and animate an already lively work.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
A Multiple Birth
The European Discovery and Naming of Manhattan: Angouleme, New Amsterdam, New York, New Orange, and Forever After, New York	1	(26)
A Multireligious Destiny
The Early Establishment of Religious Pluralism in Churches and Schools	27	(28)
Seafaring Splendor
The Shaping of New York's Destiny as a World-Class Seaport	55	(28)
Merchant Princes
The Lure of Marketing, Merchandising, and Moneymaking	83	(24)
Peopling New York
Asia, Europe, and Africa Transplanted	107	(28)
A City of Contrasts
Ascent of the Rich and Struggles of the Poor	135	(28)
Broadway
The Metamorphosis of a Manhattan Street	163	(24)
Brooklyn and Staten Island
The People, Parks, and Ambience	187	(30)
The Bronx and Queens
The People, Parks, and Ambience	217	(26)
Politicians for All Seasons
Peter Stuyvesant, Thomas Dongan, Fernando Wood, and Fiorello La Guardia	243	(32)
Triumphs of Architecture and Urban Engineering
Buildings, Bridges, Parks, and the City's Underground	275	(28)
Painting, Theater, Music, and Dance
New York's Rise as an International Center in All Phases of the Arts	303	(28)
Communication As Art and As Industry
Literature, Newspapers, Printing, and Publishing	331	(24)
Sports for All Seasons and All Fans
Take Me Out to the Ball Game	355	(22)
Notes	377	(8)
Bibliography	385	(10)
Picture Credits	395	(10)
Index	405