New York City, NY
(see also Cities)
Basics
On the Web: Articles
On the Web: Specialized Sites
New York Press. Alternative paper.
Village Voice. Alternative paper.
In the Library: Articles
In the Library: Non-Fiction Books
Anbinder, Tyler. Five Points: The 19th-C. New York City Neighborhood that Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections, & Became the World's Most Notorious Slum (NY: Plume, 2001).
Asbury, Herbert. The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld (NY: Knopf, 1928).
Bayor, Ronald H. & Timothy J. Meagher (eds.) The New York Irish (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1996).
Bernstein, Iver. The New York City Draft Riots: Their Significance for American Society & Politics in the Age of the Civil War (NY: Oxford, 1990).
Block, Alan A. East Side-West Side: Organizing Crime in New York, 1930-1950 (New Brunswick NJ: Transaction, 1983).
Burrows, Edwin G. & Mike Wallace. Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (NY: Oxford, 1999).
Cantwell, Anne-Marie & Diana deZerega Wall. Unearthing Gotham: The Archeology of New York City (New Haven: Yale, 2001).
Caro, Robert A. The Power Broker: Robert Moses & the Fall of New York (NY: Knopf, 1974).
Gilfoyle, Timothy. City of Eros: New York City, Prostitution, & the Commercialization of Sex, 1790-1920 (NY: W.W. Norton, 1992).
Hamill, Pete. Downtown: My Manhattan (Boston: Little, Brown, 2005).
Harris, Leslie M. In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626-1863 (Chicago: U. of Chicago, 2003).
Hodges, Graham Russell. Roots & Branch: African Americans in New York & East Jersey, 1612-1863 (Chapel Hill: U. of North Carolina, 1999).
Hood, Clifton. 722 Miles: The Building of the Subways & How They Transformed New YorK (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 2005).
Jackall, Robert. Street Stories: The World of Police Detectives (Cambridge MA: Harvard, 2005). NYPD.
Kamil, Seth & Eric Waken. The Big Onion Guide to New York City: Ten Historic Tours (NY: NYU, 2002).
LeDuff, Charlie. Work & Other Sins: Life in New York City & Thereabouts (NY: Penguin, 2004).
Lopate, Phillip. Waterfront: A Journey Around Manhattan (NY: Crown, 2004).
Mitchell, Joseph. The Bottom of the Harbor (Boston: Little, Brown, 1959). Brilliant reportage on how NY harbor once "churned together past & present, nature & humanity, predators & prey."
Riis, Jacob A. How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York [1901] (ed. Luc Sante; NY: Penguin, 1997).
Rosenblum, Constance (ed.) New York Stories: The Best of the City Section of the NY Times (NY: NYU, 2005).
Sante, Luc. Low Life: Lures & Snares of Old New York (NY: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1991).
Stansell, Christine. City of Women: Sex & Class in New York, 1789-1860 (Urbana: U. of Illinois, 1987).
Sullivan, Robert. Rats: Observations on the History & Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants (NY: Bloomsbury, 2004).
Wilentz, Sean. Chants Democratic: New York City & the Rise of the American Working Class, 1788-1850 (NY: Cambridge, 1984).
In the Library: Fiction
Auster, Paul. City of Glass (NY: Penguin, 1987).
Bolton, Isabel. New York Mosaic: Three Novels (South Royalton VT: Steerforth, 1997).
Chabon, Michael. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay: A Novel (NY: Random House, 2000). 1940s & 50s.
Crane, Stephen. Maggie, a Girl of the Streets & Other Tales of New York (NY: Penguin, 2000).
DeLillo, Don. Great Jones Street (NY: Penguin, 1994).
Doctorow, E.L. Ragtime (NY: Random House, 1975). 1920s.
__________. The Waterworks (NY: Random House, 1994).
__________. City of God (NY: Random House, 2000).
Gaffney, Elizabeth. Metropolis: A Novel (NY: Random House, 2005). 19th C.
Himes, Chester. Lonely Crusade (NY: Knopf, 1947).
__________. Cast the First Stone [1952] (NY: New American Library, 1972).
__________. A Rage in Harlem [1957] (NY: Vintage, 1991).
__________. All Shot Up [1960] (NY: Thunder's Mouth, 1996).
__________. Cotton Comes to Harlem [1965] (London: Allison & Busby, 1985).
__________. The Crazy Kill (
__________. Real Cool Killers (
__________. Run Man Run [1966] (NY: Carroll & Graf, 1995).
__________. The Heat's On [1966] (pub. as Come Back Charleston Blue; Harmondworth: Penguin, 1974).
__________. Blind Man with a Pistol [1969] (London: Allison & Busby, 1986).
__________. If He Hollers Let Him Go (NY: New American Library, 1971).
__________. The End of a Primitive (NY: Norton, 1997).
__________. The Collected Stories of Chester Himes [1990] (NY: Thunder's Mouth, 2000).
Howells, Dean. A Hazard of New Fortunes (NY: Modern Library, 2002).
Lish, Gordon. Zimzum: A Novel (NY: Pantheon, 1993).
Maxwell, William. All the Days & Nights: The Collected Stories of William Maxwell (NY: Knopf, 1995).
Mosley, Walter. RL's Dream (NY: Washingtron Square, 1996).
Oates, Joyce Carroll. What I Lived For (NY: Dutton, 1994).
Remnick, David with Susan Choi (eds.) Wonderful Town: New York Stories from the New Yorker (NY: Random House, 2000).
Selby, Hubert. Last Exit to Brooklyn (NY: Grove, 1964).
Whitehead, Colson. The Colossus of New York (NY: Anchor, 2005). Short stories.
Wolfe, Tom. The Bonfire of the Vanities: A Novel (NY: Bantam, 2001).
Zucker, Benjamin. Green: A Novel (NY: Overlook, 2002).
In the Library: For Young Readers
In the Library: Poetry
In the Library: Drama
In the Library: Photography
Evans, Walker. Many Are Called (New Haven: Yale, 2004). Subway pictures from 1930s & 40s, a portrait of NY.
CD & Audio
Film & Video
"La ciudad" [1998], dir. David Riker, 88m. Life & work for fast-growing Mexican immigrant population of city.
"Bachata: Music of the People" [2003], dir. Giovanni Savino, 60m. From Cinema Guild.
"Coney Island" [1991], dir. Ric Burn, 58m. From PBS.
"Cuban Roots/Bronx Stories" [2000], dir. Pam Spom, 57m.
"Dreams Ensnared: Dominican Migration to New York" [1988], dir. Sonia Fritz, 54m. From Cinema Guild.
"Gangs of New York" [2002], dir. Martin Scorsese, 166m. In video stores.
"Mad Hot Ballroom" [2005], dir. Marilyn Agrelo, 105m. In video stores. Wonderful documentary on kids & teachers in citywide competition in ballroom dancing for fifth graders.
"Malcolm"
"My American Girls: A Dominican Story" [2000], dir. Aaron Matthews, 62m. From Filmakers Library. A year in the life of the immigrant Ortiz family of Brooklyn.
"New York in the Fifties" [2001], dir. Betsy Blankenbaker, 110m. From First Run Features.
"On the Waterfront"
"El Super"
"Youngblood Hawke"
"Raising Victor Vargas" [2003], dir. Peter Sollett, 88m. In video stores. New York family drama .