New York city guide; a comprehensive guide to the five boroughs of the metropolis: Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, and Richmond by Work Projects Administration

New York city guide; a comprehensive guide to the five boroughs of the metropolis: Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, and Richmond Reviews

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  Owen Hatherley

  Remarkable snapshot of the New Deal city, one moment telling you about a skyscraper or a 'Colonial Georgian' mansion and the next a new public housing project or hospital. This edition has an already very dated intro by William Whyte, but what would be much more useful is one telling you who wrote which texts (there's a few famous names in the long list at the start), who made the (excellent) woodcuts and photographs, etc.
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  Jonathan Lopez

  This is a fascinating reprint of a guide to New York City published in the 1930s, having been commissioned by the federal WPA project. It's not something that you sit down and read cover to cover, but it is jam-packed with fascinating tidbits that bring old New York to life.
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  Catherine Mustread

  Yes, I'm biased, as a GIANT FAN of the WPA state and city books (mostly) published in the late 1930s. How long ago that was -- 90 years! -- yet doesn't seem that long past in the scheme of things. Full of maps and lists and recommendations, I plan to review this all again before my next trip to NYC.
• 
  Molly

  I once had this book checked out for nearly six months (I found it deep in the stacks, and nobody had checked it out for DECADES, so I didn't mind using the power of a faculty-staff library card to check it out for a month at a time) and used to just pick it up and read a section from time to time. For some reason I've been thinking of it again over the last couple of days, and wish I had it around.
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  Paul Jellinek

  For anyone who loves New York, this book is a treasure. Compiled by first-rate unemployed writers during the Depression, it provides a burrough-by-burrough, neighborhood-by-neighborhood account of the world's greatest metropolis, past and present (the present being the 1930's). You will never see New York in quite the same way again.
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  Drew Gordon

  Not really a "read," it's a guide book written about all five boroughs in the 30's to give writers something to do during the economic depression. Excellent pictures and interesting history of what New York's neighborhoods once were.
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  John Michlig

  Re-acquired after losing it in '08. Crucial for researching a book project.