Tenements, Towers & Trash

By Julia Wertz,

Book cover of Tenements, Towers & Trash: An Unconventional Illustrated History of New York City

Book description

Here is New York as you've never seen it before; the New York behind the New York that you think you know so well. With drawings and comics in her signature style, Julia Wertz regales us with dozens of street scenes that show exactly what the city looked like "then"…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Tenements, Towers & Trash as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

For an unusual and completely different take on New York, pick up this delightful, funny, and moving book filled with drawings of cityscapes past and present. I wasn’t aware of Wertz’s book until after I’d written my book (full disclosure: Wertz wrote a blurb for my book), but I feel it captures in illustrations what the best of other New York writers capture in words. Reading it is like walking along the streets of the city itself, with a bit of poetry here, a bit of squalor there, a bit of history everywhere.  

From Christiane's list on New York City by women writers.

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