The Manhattan skyline is one of the great wonders of the modern world. But how and why did it form? Much has been written about the city’s architecture and its general history, but little work has explored the economic forces that created the skyline. This book chronicles the economic history of the Manhattan skyline. The story begins at the literal beginning with a tour of Manhattan’s natural history to see how geological conditions did—and did not—shape the skyline. From there, the book traces the rise of the island’s skyscrapers. In the process, the book debunks some widely held misconceptions about the city’s history.
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This book is an amazingly detailed chronicle of the history of New York architecture and engineering that led to the birth and growth of the New York skyline. Carl Condit was one of the 20th century’s best scholars on the history of building technology, architecture, and transportation. Landau and Condit have deep-dived into archives and historical documents to uncover how the first skyscrapers were built.
A great account of the interaction between economics and architecture in the rise of the New York and Chicago skylines. Willis is the founder and director of the Skyscraper Museum in New York City. This book was one of the first that I read as I started to do research on the economics of skyscrapers. I was fascinated by Willis' account. Arguably, this book, more than any other, helped to define my 15 years of research on the topic.
This natural history of Manhattan is about the natural “skyline”—the flora and geography that was converted from a natural wonder to the world’s most amazing city. Sanderson’s re-creation of Manhattan before it was Manhattan is a tour de force. While the book is not directly about the Manhattan skyline, a deep understanding of Manhattan’s geography and natural environment before European settlement is actually crucial to understanding how the skyline rose in the 20th century.
In about one year’s time, from 1930 to 1931, three buildings—the Bank of Manhattan, The Chrysler Building, and the Empire State Building—in rapid succession claimed the prize of “world’s tallest.” This book is a great journalist account of the personalities behind the three-way race at the peak of the Roaring Twenties. We get to see the inside story of the developers, the architects, and the builders.
Arguably, no single person has shaped the built environment of New York City as much as Robert Moses. To some, he was an evil dictator imposing his will on the urban fabric; while to others, he was the man who got things done. In his four-decade career, Moses oversaw the buildings of beaches, parks, highways, bridges, tunnels, public housing, slum clearance projects, and World Fairs. Caro’s work is a detailed chronicle of Moses’ life and projects. Five decades later, one can quibble with Caro’s conclusions, but it remains a jaw-dropping tome about how Moses reshaped New York, for good and for bad.
5,309 authors have recommended their favorite books and what they love about them. Browse their picks for the best books about New York City, New York State, and Washington D.C..
We think you will like All-Of-A-Kind Family, The Turnaround, and Gotham if you like this list.
From Pamela's list on the best memoirs through the voices of women.
In 1951, Sydney Taylor invented the memorable Brenners—papa, mama, five sisters, and baby brother—a Jewish family on the Lower East Side in turn-of-the-century New York. Taylor’s words and Helen John’s illustrations in this book, the first in a series, set the scene. A calendar in the parlor announced that it was 1912. Tenements lined city streets. When I read these novels as a child, I did not yet know that they were closely based on Taylor’s own life. When the entire series was republished in 2014, I quipped: I became a Jewish historian because of these books.
From Wes's list on the best books on crime and criminal justice.
This book describes the harum-scarum changes to the NYPD that made possible an astonishing reduction in crime and homicide in a city in the midst of the crack cocaine wars. When Bratton began promoting hotshot cops on merit rather than seniority, half the senior commanders retired in horror. The result? A lot of fat ex-cops retired to Florida and the renaissance of New York City.
From Victoria's list on the best books on New York City history to 1900.
Winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for History, this book is the essential guide to New York City history from the days of the Dutch colony to 1898, the year New York expanded to become the city of five boroughs: Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. Despite its length, Gotham is eminently readable, thanks to its hundreds of colorful characters and fascinating stories of politics and culture in a rising world city. The wealth of research that went into this book—over twenty years’ worth—gives us by far our most complete single-volume account of how New York became New York. I reach for this book over and over as I seek to learn the story of the city.
