In Old New York (New York City) - Softcover

Janvier, Thomas A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0486791262 ISBN 13: 9780486791265

Publisher: Dover Publications, 2015

Synopsis

This charming account of Manhattan's history extends from the arrival of Dutch colonists in the early 1600s through the late nineteenth century. Intriguing details, dozens of illustrations and maps, and historian Thomas A. Janvier's wry sense of humor combine for a vivid portrait of the metropolis in its early years.
Sketches, diary excerpts, and scenes from daily life recapture some of the city's long-vanished features. Ranging all over the island, the survey explores the farms and waterways of Greenwich Village, the Battery's fortifications, and shacks, barns, and mansions of the Upper East and West sides. Thirteen maps chronicle the city's expansion, and etchings, line drawings, and other images depict Fort Amsterdam, Chelsea's gates and doorways, and other public and private buildings. Written in an engaging, easy-to-read style, this fascinating book will enchant history buffs, students of urban planning and architecture, and all lovers of New York stories.

About this title

About the Author:

American novelist and historian Thomas Janvier (1849–1913) moved from Philadelphia to New York in 1881. A resident of Washington Square, he wrote a series of articles about the city's artistic life and culture, many of them published in Harper's Magazine.

From Publishers Weekly:

Today's New Yorkers are famous for both their fierce loyalty to their hometown and their intense desire to tell you how they can make it better. Things were no different in 1894, when historian and social commentator Janvier first published this meticulously detailed, floridly anecdotal and occasionally cranky love letter to his adopted home, reprinted here with a helpful new introduction by Brooklyn College history professor Edwin G. Burrows. After painstakingly outlining the city's early growth and development, Janvier, a self-trained historian, rants that an 1807 city commission charged with laying out the city's streets threw away "the magnificent opportunity... to create a beautiful city." By creating Manhattan's now famous grid of streets and avenues, they thwarted continued development of the complex, interlocking networks of ponds, woods and small neighborhoods that had made up the city until then. It's a classic clash between romantic idealism and "progress," present in the writings of Jane Jacobs and other modern urbanologists. Janvier is best when describing the quirky, intricate history of Greenwich Village and the development of Chelsea around the Episcopal Theological Seminary, citing both as examples of his small-is-beautiful philosophy. A man of his time, Janvier's nativism and racism are omnipresent: he is as likely to state that "even the bad smells have foreign names" as he is to rhapsodize about sylvan glades. Still, this long-out-of-print classic adds welcome historical perspective to contemporary urban studies. (Mar.)

Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0486791262
• ISBN 13: 9780486791265
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320