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 Vivid Faces: The Revolutionary Generation in Ireland, 1890-1923 by Fran Leadon
Cover of the book The Founders at Home: The Building of America, 1735-1817 by Fran Leadon
Cover of the book Modernism: The Lure of Heresy by Fran Leadon
Cover of the book The Cost of Rights: Why Liberty Depends on Taxes by Fran Leadon
Cover of the book A Faker's Dozen: Stories by Fran Leadon
Cover of the book The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in An Age of Diminishing Expectations by Fran Leadon
Cover of the book An American Sunrise: Poems by Fran Leadon
Cover of the book Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America by Fran Leadon
Cover of the book Who Gave Pinta to the Santa Maria?: Torrid Diseases in a Temperate World by Fran Leadon
Cover of the book The Unseen World: A Novel by Fran Leadon
Cover of the book Sick and Tired of Feeling Sick and Tired: Living with Invisible Chronic Illness (New Edition) by Fran Leadon
Cover of the book The Hidden History of Burma: Race, Capitalism, and the Crisis of Democracy in the 21st Century by Fran Leadon
Cover of the book Vice: New and Selected Poems by Fran Leadon
Cover of the book Climbing Mount Improbable by Fran Leadon
Cover of the book Growing a Farmer: How I Learned to Live Off the Land 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