Broadway: A History of New York City in Thirteen Miles

Nonfiction, Art & Architecture, Architecture, Planning, History, Americas, United States
Cover of the book Broadway: A History of New York City in Thirteen Miles by Fran Leadon, W. W. Norton & Company
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Fran Leadon ISBN: 9780393285451
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company Publication: April 17, 2018
Imprint: W. W. Norton & Company Language: English
Author: Fran Leadon
ISBN: 9780393285451
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Publication: April 17, 2018
Imprint: W. W. Norton & Company
Language: English

An eye-opening history of Manhattan told through its most celebrated street.

In the early seventeenth century, in a backwater Dutch colony, there was a wide, muddy cow path that the settlers called the Brede Wegh. As the street grew longer, houses and taverns began to spring up alongside it. What was once New Amsterdam became New York, and farmlands gradually gave way to department stores, theaters, hotels, and, finally, the perpetual traffic of the twentieth century’s Great White Way. From Bowling Green all the way up to Marble Hill, Broadway takes us on a mile-by-mile journey up America’s most vibrant and complex thoroughfare, through the history at the heart of Manhattan.

Today, Broadway almost feels inevitable, but over the past four hundred years there have been thousands who have tried to draw and erase its path. Following their footsteps, we learn why one side of the street was once considered more fashionable than the other; witness the construction of Trinity Church, the Flatiron Building, and the Ansonia Hotel; the burning of P. T. Barnum’s American Museum; and discover that Columbia University was built on the site of an insane asylum. Along the way we meet Alexander Hamilton, Emma Goldman, Edgar Allan Poe, John James Audubon, "Bill the Butcher" Poole, and the assorted real-estate speculators, impresarios, and politicians who helped turn Broadway into New York’s commercial and cultural spine.

Broadway traces the physical and social transformation of an avenue that has been both the "Path of Progress" and a "street of broken dreams," home to both parades and riots, startling wealth and appalling destitution. Glamorous, complex, and sometimes troubling, the evolution of an oft-flooded dead end to a canyon of steel and glass is the story of American progress.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

An eye-opening history of Manhattan told through its most celebrated street.

In the early seventeenth century, in a backwater Dutch colony, there was a wide, muddy cow path that the settlers called the Brede Wegh. As the street grew longer, houses and taverns began to spring up alongside it. What was once New Amsterdam became New York, and farmlands gradually gave way to department stores, theaters, hotels, and, finally, the perpetual traffic of the twentieth century’s Great White Way. From Bowling Green all the way up to Marble Hill, Broadway takes us on a mile-by-mile journey up America’s most vibrant and complex thoroughfare, through the history at the heart of Manhattan.

Today, Broadway almost feels inevitable, but over the past four hundred years there have been thousands who have tried to draw and erase its path. Following their footsteps, we learn why one side of the street was once considered more fashionable than the other; witness the construction of Trinity Church, the Flatiron Building, and the Ansonia Hotel; the burning of P. T. Barnum’s American Museum; and discover that Columbia University was built on the site of an insane asylum. Along the way we meet Alexander Hamilton, Emma Goldman, Edgar Allan Poe, John James Audubon, "Bill the Butcher" Poole, and the assorted real-estate speculators, impresarios, and politicians who helped turn Broadway into New York’s commercial and cultural spine.

Broadway traces the physical and social transformation of an avenue that has been both the "Path of Progress" and a "street of broken dreams," home to both parades and riots, startling wealth and appalling destitution. Glamorous, complex, and sometimes troubling, the evolution of an oft-flooded dead end to a canyon of steel and glass is the story of American progress.

More books from W. W. Norton & Company

Cover of the book Swimming with Piranhas at Feeding Time: My Life Doing Dumb Stuff with Animals by Fran Leadon
Cover of the book The Reverse of the Medal (Vol. Book 11) (Aubrey/Maturin Novels) by Fran Leadon
Cover of the book The Fact of a Doorframe: Poems 1950-2001 by Fran Leadon
Cover of the book Monster of God: The Man-Eating Predator in the Jungles of History and the Mind by Fran Leadon
Cover of the book Sylvanus Now: A Novel by Fran Leadon
Cover of the book Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression by Fran Leadon
Cover of the book Gandhi's Truth: On the Origins of Militant Nonviolence by Fran Leadon
Cover of the book Opal Sunset: Selected Poems, 1958-2008 by Fran Leadon
Cover of the book When Sex Goes to School: Warring Views on Sex--and Sex Education--Since the Sixties by Fran Leadon
Cover of the book Wedding of the Waters: The Erie Canal and the Making of a Great Nation by Fran Leadon
Cover of the book Behind My Eyes: Poems by Fran Leadon
Cover of the book Jacob's Ladder: The History of the Human Genome by Fran Leadon
Cover of the book Unmentionables: Poems by Fran Leadon
Cover of the book Religion as We Know It: An Origin Story by Fran Leadon
Cover of the book Titanic Thompson: The Man Who Bet on Everything by Fran Leadon
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy