The Man with the Sawed-Off Leg and Other Tales of Format: Paperback

A Fascinating Biography of One City Block in Upper Manhattan, Bringing Buildings to Life through Stories Drawn from the Flesh-and-Blood Beings who Pass Through Them

If only the walls could talk, what would they say?

Standing proudly, gazing across the Hudson River at the cliffs of New Jersey, their brows are marked by ornamental pediments. Greek columns stand as sentries by their entrances and stone medallions bedeck their chests. They are seven graceful relics of Beaux Arts New York, townhouses built more than one hundred years ago for a new class of industrialists, actors and scientists—many from abroad—who made their fortunes in the United States and shaped the lives of Americans.

This book brings to life the ghosts who inhabit that row of townhouses on Manhattan's stately Riverside Drive for the first fifty years of the twentieth century. From gangsters to industrialists, from future mayors to murderers, from movie stars to mafia dons, one block in a burgeoning city saw it all. Meet some of the colorful collection of people who lived in each of New York's "Seven Sisters," including:

• Percy Geary and John Oley, two Albany gangsters with a background in kidnapping and bootlegging;
• Lucretia Davis, baking powder heiress;
• Jokichi Takamine, the world's first biotech engineer and one of the few Japanese scientists in the United States at the turn of the nineteenth century. 
• Marion Davies, the mistress of William Randolph Hearst, who rose to movie stardom on the back of W.R.'s publicity machine while living on the block;
• Julia Marlowe, America's greatest Shakespearean actress of the age;
• The Fabers, of pencil fame;
• Billy Phelan's Greatest Game, the Albany gang made famous by William Kennedy;
• In addition to Duke Ellington, two mayors, and, lurking in the background, Legs Diamond.

Daniel Wakin pulls together their individual stories and weaves them into a tapestry indicative of and unique to New York City, breathing new life into these historic buildings and the histories they've witnessed and giving us an unforgettable, intimate glimpse into the past.

Daniel J.  Watkin has been an editor and reporter at the New York Times since 2000. He currently is the deputy editorial director of NYT Global, a team established in 2016 to increase the international audience of the New York Times. Previously, he was a deputy editor in the Culture Department, with responsibility for the daily Arts section and international cultural coverage. A graduate of Harvard University with a degree in the Classics, Mr. Watkin continues to be an avid amateur clarinetist. The Man with the Sawed-Off Leg and Other Tales of a New York City Block is his first book.