Recently, I saw Tina Fey carrying two duffel bags unhappily towards the 72nd street subway. It seemed like a scene from 30 Rock, and seeing stuff like this, and being able to think of it in terms of cultural references is one of the many things I love about living in New York. Aside from 30 Rock, you can see places you’ve seen on Friends, Seinfeld, How I Met Your Mother or, if you’re a comic book and Netflix guy like me, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage.
Or, you can see places you recognize from Woody Allen Films, Spike Lee movies, When Harry Met Sally, Breakfast at Tiffanies, the Godfather, Ghost Busters and so many more. (or if you are a comic book movies guy like me, Spiderman, Superman, Batman, The Avengers and, like, most of the other ones)
But even more than movies and TV, books have shaped the way I see the city more than anything else. Here are some of my favorites.
On Looking: Eleven Walks Through Expert Eyes by Alexandra Horowitz
I can’t remember where I picked this book up, but it was really a delightful read and enhanced my view of new york. In the book, the author, a psychology professor at Barnard College (my fiance’s alma mater), demonstrates how the city we see is influenced by who we are. She does this by taking a walk with a variety of experts, including a geologist, a guy who designs type faces, a blind person, and, my personal favorite… a dog! It’s fascinating what you can see when you shift your perspective. And of course the city that she see through new eyes is none other than her home and mine, New York City.
Field Guide to the Natural World of New York City- Leslie Day
Armed with a renewed reminder of how the city can be enriched when you know a little more about what your looking at, I turned to this lovely little guide. I spent a couple afternoons wandering around in Central Park trying to identify trees, flowers and birds with this handy little guide. Now, I can take an interest in the trees planted in other neighborhoods. Interesting that Prospect Park has more honey locust but Williamsburg has more London Planes, for example.
A note about this book: because it covers trees, flowers, animals and birds, it can’t include too many of any of them. So, it’s a great start, but if you find yourself wanting to go deeper into any one aspect of New York’s natural wonder, you may have to buy additional field guides.
The Great Bridge- David McCullough
Not only is it enriching to see New York’s trees and typefaces, but it’s fascinating to know a little bit about the deep history of the city, and that’s where the rest of my list is focussed.
The Great Bridge is a wonderful book about the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, starring a wonderful cast of characters. The eccentric father and son engineering team, the political ‘bosses’ of Brooklyn and Manhattan, the egocentric crackpot who invented a way of working under water, and the many men who toiled on the bridge, often succumbing to the bends, as medical men tried to figure out what exactly it was.
It’s a fascinating read. Once a New Yorker reads this book a taxi ride across the bridge will never be the same again.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Great Gatsby
Enough has been written about these literary classics that I don’t think I have to add my 2 cents. They are both amazing books, giving two very different perspectives on New York City towards the beginning of the 20th century. If you haven’t read them, just read them already, ok?
Just Kids- Patti Smith
This is an absolutely stunning book about Patti Smith’s early days in New York as a starving artist in the 1970s, and her relationship/friendship (it’s complicated) with Robert Mapplethorpe, a photographer and occasional ‘hustler’.
To me, the portrait of the artist in an awesome city reminds me of A Moveable Feast by Earnest Hemingway. The prose is incredible and the story is compelling. This is a must read for everyone.
The First Tycoon-TJ Stiles & Titan– Ron Chernow
I’m putting these two books together as biographies of two of the businessmen who most shaped the city for generations to come.
The First Tycoon is the story of Cornelius Vanderbilt, who started as a ferryman between Manhattan and Brooklyn, famously brutal and given to fistfights with competitors, who ended up shaping New York’s landscape through the first railroads on Manhattan island and out to the rest of the country. His families mansions are a fixture on 5th avenue that are just now being abandoned by his children, many generations later.
Titan is the story of John D. Rockefeller, the richest man who ever lived who not only shaped New York’s hospital system through his charitable donations but whose children and grandhildren would continue to shape the city through their business and political interests. The Rockefellers became closely associated with Chase Manhattan bank, which is a huge fixture of the city today, John D’s grandson, Nelson was the Governor of New York in the 1970s.
In the books you’ll see a lot that you dislike about these two men, but for better or worse they have permanently shaped the city we live in.
The Power Broker- Robert Caro
This is the ultimate story of New York, as told through the story of Robert Moses, who shaped the city and New York state during his 5 decades of power. Moses’s story is a truly epic tale of ambition, idealism, hard work, intellect and good intentions ultimately turning into greed, betrayal and lust for unrivalled power. Meanwhile Robert Moses shaped New York in his own image more than any other man in the city’s history.
Mayors and governors would come and go (including Al Smith, Fiorello LaGuardia, Franklin Roosevelt, and Nelson Rockefeller) but Moses stayed in power for 5 decades, sometimes holding up to 12 state and city offices simultaneously. He created the suburban sprawl of long island, Riverside Park, Lincoln Center, the Triborough bridge and so many landmarks we see every day it would be impossible to list them all.
Robert Moses’s story is incredible and almost unbelieveable, and Caro’s writing is extremely thorough and well researched with a strong moral drive and narrative. The Power Broker is one of my favorite books ever, and well worth the many weeks you’ll spend reading it.
Honorable mentions: The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Franny and Zooey,
Future Reading: Machine Made: Tammany Hall and the Creation of Modern American Politics, Alexander Hamilton, “Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898” by Edwin G. Burrows
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