Richard Plunz

Around 340 pages of actual text; then notes and back matter for another 50 pages. Averages an illustration per page, more or less, mainly building drawings and a small number of photographs, Fortunately the book is large, a 9" x 9" square, so the illustrations are readable, though 'only just' sometimes. There are 2 short introductory chapters (50 pp total) bringing the reader up to the mid-18th Century. Then three chapters on tenements in Manhattan, then a long chapter on Garden Apartments in the outer boroughs. This is as far as I have read.

I rated the book 5 stars because it is scholarly and comprehensive. It is a survey, though, that doesn't concentrate on any one aspect. A good clue to the book's nature is this, on page 4:

[Quote] By mid- [19th] century New York had achieved its position as the North American metropolis. During this time the dominant characteristics of the city's present-day culture of housing began to emerge; New York became a city not of "houses," but of "housing." A growing proportion of its inhabitants lived in collective accomodation that was unique in the nation. This condition crossed class lines from the tenements of the poor to the increasingly dense row housing of the upper middle class. [Unquote]

A good use of the book's housing project descriptions, for me, will be as a framework on which to base walking tours of the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn. They are handled chronologically and by type by the author, but it won't be hard, using Google Earth or Maps, to organize them by location and walk from one to another. Touring the outer boroughs suffers from the limitation that you are walking past housing of different types - and not much else - most of the time. There is significance in this housing, you sense, because its scale and extent are so far beyond the experience of anyone, I would guess, but New York residents. This book fulfils that task of describing what you are seeing and its place in the scheme of things, housing-wise.

There's a twofold value in this book for me: (1) It explains New York at the level of housing, which is a useful level if you want to understand New York. And (2) it vastly increases the value and productivity of a day walking the Bronx, Queens, or Brooklyn, and provides an incentive to 'get out there' to the boroughs instead of always being snagged by the lures of Manhattan on my daytrips to New York.… (mere)