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Julia Wertz
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Tenements, Towers & Trash: An Unconventional Illustrated History of New York City Kindle Edition

by Julia Wertz (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 143 ratings
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A New York Times Notable Book of 2017!

Here is New York, as you've never seen it before. A perfectly charming, sidesplittingly funny, intellectually entertaining illustrated history of the blocks, the buildings, and the guts of New York City, based on Julia Wertz's popular illustrated columns in The New Yorker and Harper's.

In Tenements, Towers & Trash, Julia Wertz takes us behind the New York that you think you know. Not the tourist's New York-the Statue of Liberty makes a brief appearance and the Empire State Building not at all-but the guts, the underbelly, of this city that never sleeps. With drawings and comics in her signature style, Wertz regales us with streetscapes "Then and Now" and little-known tales, such as the lost history of Kim's Video, the complicated and unresolved business of Ray's Pizza, the vintage trash and horse bones that litter the shore of Brooklyn's Bottle Beach, the ludicrous pinball prohibition, Staten Island's secret abandoned boatyard, and the hair-raising legend of the infamous abortionist of Fifth Avenue, Madame Restell. From bars, bakeries, and bookstores to food carts, street cleaners, and apartments both cramped and grand, Tenements, Towers & Trash is a wild ride in a time machine taxi from the present day city to bygone days of yore.
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  1. Print length
    284 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    Not Enabled
  4. Publisher
    Black Dog & Leventhal
  5. Publication date
    October 3, 2017
  6. File size
    502282 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Not Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Not Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Not Enabled
  10. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"A passionate anatomy of the city, a book of dramatic streetscapes and hidden histories - mostly of infamous women, like the 19th-century celebrity abortionist Madame Restell, who catered to socialites and built her Fifth Avenue mansion a block away from a Catholic church, supposedly to taunt the faithful....The city rises majestically in these pages. The crowded panels evoke the jostle of urban life. Your eye doesn't know where to settle; there's so much to absorb."―The New York Times

"Julia Wertz's Tenements, Towers and Trash is nothing short of extraordinary. The meticulously researched histories of the various urban landscapes are fascinating, and Wertz's drawings perfectly capture the visual poetry of the city- the ongoing struggle between past and present, and its unique blend of beauty and ugliness. A must for anyone who loves and appreciates the city, as Wertz so clearly does."―Roz Chast

"[Wertz's] love [of New York] is tangible and moving."―NPR

"Obsessiveness, in a sense, is the subject of Julia Wertz's Tenements, Towers & Trash, which was flat-out the most enjoyable experience I had with any book this year."―The Chicago Tribune

"A delight for New York aficionados. Every city needs a version of this artist and her book."
―Kirkus Reviews

"In presenting the life of the city, Wertz captures change as the most important constant trait of New York City, with a vivid eclecticism that makes this an indispensable guidebook to places lost and found."
―Publishers Weekly

"Richly dense and informative yet never dull or pedantic, Wertz's eye for detail and obsession with minutiae pays massive dividends for the reader. Her skill at rendering cityscapes left me breathless with admiration and gut-twisting envy. It's also funny as fuck."―Emily Flake, author of Mama Tried

"A singular voice on a singular place."―Gabrielle Bell, author of Everything Is Flammable

"Julia Wertz's New York is a city of magic and mystery. Her sharply detailed illustrations bring Gotham's streets to life and reveal their secrets. Walkers and history buffs will love being part of Wertz's world."―Esther Crain, author of The Gilded Age in New York, 1870-1910

"A completely new and refreshing way to look at New York City history. You'll be so
transfixed by this book's extraordinary imagery that you may forget to turn the page!"―Greg Young, author of The Bowery Boys: Adventures in Old New York

"Showcasing her extraordinary artistic talent, Wertz digs into an eclectic survey of the city's past, and the remaining architectural relics, through her large-format illustrated history, Tenements, Towers & Trash"―Shelf Awareness

"This is a great gift for the history, design, and illustration obsessives in your life... or a great gift for yourself..."―The Cut

"A celebration of city life, of living right on top of your neighbor, of those corner shops that barely stay open for a month and the storefronts that last longer than a century... When you really see a city through Wertz's eyes, you're likely to understand your own city in a different way forever after."―Seattle Review of Books

"Wertz's love of New York and its history enliven the streetscapes in her superb book, a then-and-now tribute to bookstores, music venues, movie theaters, bars and many other spots."―San Francisco Chronicle

About the Author

Julia Wertz is a professional cartoonist and amateur historian. She has published five graphic novels, including most recently Tenements, Towers & Trash and does monthly history comics for the New Yorker and Harper's Magazine.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B073ZLLQB3
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Black Dog & Leventhal; Illustrated edition (October 3, 2017)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 3, 2017
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 502282 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Not enabled
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 284 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 143 ratings

About the author

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Julia Wertz

Julia Wertz

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Julia Wertz is a professional cartoonist, amateur historian, and part-time urban explorer. She made the comic books The Fart Party vol 1 and vol 2 (collected in Museum of Mistakes) and the graphic novels Drinking at the Movies, The Infinite Wait, Tenements, Towers, & Trash, (for which she won the 2018 Brendan Gill Prize), and Impossible People. She does regular short story comics for the New Yorker. Her work has appeared regularly in the New York Times, Harper’s Magazine, the Believer, the Best American Comics, and other publications. Her photography of abandoned places has appeared in a handful of newspapers. She is a repeated MacDowell fellow but was rejected from Yaddo. Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, she spent a decade in New York City before settling in Sonoma County, CA, with her partner Oliver (yup, the Oliver from Fart Party) and their son Felix. She’s currently working on the graphic novel Bury Me Already (It’s Nice Down Here) to be released in 2025.

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
143 global ratings
ILLEGIBLE. Resolution of images in Kindle edition is so poor that they are illegible.
1 Star
ILLEGIBLE. Resolution of images in Kindle edition is so poor that they are illegible.
The artist went to a LOT of trouble to make finely detailed illustrations. The kindle edition reproduces them at such inferior resolution that the reader can't make out what they say. Don't buy the Kindle version - you won't be able to enjoy what the artist has to offer.
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Top reviews from the United States

Billie the Kid
5.0 out of 5 stars Hold the City in Your Hands
Reviewed in the United States on February 22, 2018
Verified Purchase
I bought this as a Valentine's gift for my husband because he and I, both lifelong New Yorkers, after living through two years of a health-challengingly filthy and peace-shatteringly noisy ongoing building renovation, in the equally filthy and noisy construction site that is pretty much all of Midtown East, have found ourselves turning on the city of our birth, which previously we had declared the only place on earth we would ever want to live. Since moving outside the city is presently not an option, we decided we needed an attitude adjustment: We would do whatever it might take to fall in love with our city all over again.

This surprisingly sizable and hefty book is going a long way toward our rehabilitation program. We pour over it together, admiring the author-writer's
drawings, insights, wit, dedication to detail, meticulous research, eye for the oddball yet appreciation for the mundane, and her own love affair with the city of which she has sadly, through circumstances she describes, become deprived. Consequently, we are once again becoming thankful for the circumstances that permit us to live here, albeit at times uncomfortably.

Reproductions and reviews don't adequately do justice to such a big, gorgeous work. Let me just say that after receiving it I ordered three additional
copies to gift to natives, long-time transplants, and new New Yorkers, all of whom will surely treasure it as we do. We send much gratitude to Julia Wertz with awe at her accomplishment and hope that she can find her way back here. Also a shout-out to Amazon's customer service department; when one of the reorders arrived with a smudgy cover--not good for a gift--they replaced it in two days and emailed a prepaid label for the return.
6 people found this helpful
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T. Marvin
5.0 out of 5 stars A more essential book than one may think.
Reviewed in the United States on January 14, 2018
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I am enchanted with this book. Though we are worlds apart in backgrounds, I can easily take a comfy theatre seat behind her eyes and stroll about this wonderful city. This is not some requiem for a city lost, even though some of the comparative street scenes go from quintessential old New York to a disturbing occurrence of Subway shops, she is thoughtful enough to include even older scenes, to show that our melancholy for days gone by was shared by those who lived in the time we miss, perhaps the only constant in an ever changing city.
Bigger than that, I am happy to see comic illustration in the Krazy Kat mold. It is a narrative that bears repeated views, like visiting a park. Discovering Ms. Wertz' work has caused me to seek others in her vein, and I have been pleased to discover a world of comic art surviving the bibliocide of the daily newspaper.
7 people found this helpful
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Rhubarb
5.0 out of 5 stars Offbeat, illustrated, big weird NYC book
Reviewed in the United States on November 10, 2017
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Great and weird illustrated book on NYC. I can personally attest to the Vibe Accuracy of depictions of 70's/80's/90's NYC: spot on. The depictions from the 1800's look pretty accurate too. If your idea of history is finding out the fate of some modernist Queens world fair custom street lamps, or why horse bones wash up on a particular beach - then this might be just the book for you. (If your idea of history is like, who the "mayor" was or whatever, then I don't know what to suggest. Except HELP IS AVAILABLE. I think). Signage, street vendor apparatus, all sorts of random NYC info, all illustrated with great detail. Happy with this book.
14 people found this helpful
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Visions
4.0 out of 5 stars First Class Visit to NYC Across the Years
Reviewed in the United States on December 1, 2017
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Just a wonderful way to visualize, to experience, a City like New York (like which, there is no other). Wonderful artwork, and just the right amount of attitude. I am sorry that Ms. Wertz had to leave the place she so obviously loves.
3 people found this helpful
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JM Dash
5.0 out of 5 stars Nothing Else Like It!
Reviewed in the United States on October 4, 2017
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I love Julia Wertz’s work and I’ve been waiting anxiously for this book. It’s probably fair to say that there is no one who does what Wertz does with her combination of the visual and written word, old and new architectural art and traditional cartooning, informed information about structures old and new and the detritus that surrounds them and us, all linked with a witty and self-deprecating writing style. Some of the selections first appeared in The New Yorker and Harper’s but there is much here that’s new. Whether your interest is architecture, urban history, graphic arts, offbeat subjects, and/or garbage, this book has you covered.
14 people found this helpful
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J.FOX
5.0 out of 5 stars LOVE NY AGAIN.
Reviewed in the United States on September 14, 2018
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I was born, when to school and still live in NYC. It’s changed so much that it’s hard for us “native” New Yorkers to remember anyplace, we spended our life’s (in NY,you have many) in,This book made me love NY again. The artwork is brilliant and the history of people ,places and things that happen in the same place in the 20th-21th is worth having the book. I loved this book, it will be the Christmas gift to all my friends who had moved out NY.
2 people found this helpful
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Voyager1914
5.0 out of 5 stars Fond, witty, visually engaging
Reviewed in the United States on October 22, 2017
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For anyone interested in New York City — but especially if you’ve experienced the city personally at some point in life — Tenements, Towers & Trash is a fond, witty, visually engaging exploration of the city’s history and culture. It’s also nostalgia with attitude, as the artist author chronicles the soulless changes fueled by a flood of money that threatens to wash away the environment that has been home to folks other than the mega-rich and the exciting creativity shared by individuals…well, individuals like the creator of this book.
5 people found this helpful
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Evan W. Menzel
5.0 out of 5 stars DO U HAVE COMPLICATED FEELINGS @ NEW YORK? DO TINY BRICKS MAKE U WISTFUL?
Reviewed in the United States on November 20, 2017
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You don't realize how impressive this book is until it's in your hands: this sucker is weighty. Wertz's black and white streetscapes are transfixing; the juxtapositions of old and new New York simultaneously tickled my heartstrings and kicked me square in the cockles.

TT&T is an obsessive and conflicted historical love letter to the author's adopted city, kind of like a deep-dive-into-your-lover's-old-instagram—except not garbage. Actually, this book is full of garbage. It's in the title.

What are we doing here? Buy the book.
5 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Kris
5.0 out of 5 stars Se ami NYC, devi averlo
Reviewed in Italy on December 12, 2021
Verified Purchase
bellissimo e non scontato, lo sto gustando poco per volta. Non può mancare nella biblioteca di un innamorato di New York.
Nei bei disegni troverete la città vera con la sua storia, non certo la Manhattan dei turisti.
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Viky
5.0 out of 5 stars Buen regalo para los amantes de Nueva York
Reviewed in Spain on January 27, 2021
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Un libro precioso con la historia de Nueva York ilustrada de manera impecable
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HO Ho ho
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in Canada on January 26, 2018
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Fun exploration of New York
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K. L. Miles
5.0 out of 5 stars Pictorial history of NYC
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 18, 2020
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excellent book , fabtastic illustrations and pics alongisde fascinating history of how NYC has become the city it is today
Relevant to many of our cities and indeed our lands today
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T. Alexandre
5.0 out of 5 stars rien ne vaut l'original
Reviewed in France on July 17, 2019
Verified Purchase
bien plus grand que la version française, et bien moins cher ! ce "booking" des p'tits commerces New Yorkais à l'ancienne ravira les amateurs de relevés graphiques compulsifs et par la même vous fera bosser votre anglais ;)
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