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Where in Manhattan did Washington sleep? Where was Teddy Roosevelt born? Where did James Monroe die? Where is the birthplace of the “Twist”? Where was Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff's multi-million dollar penthouse? Where is the site of the country’s first traffic fatality? These tidbits are among the more than 2,000 fascinating entries comprising All Around the Town: Amazing Manhattan Facts and Curiosities, the definitive guide to historic New York.
All Around the Town brings the city’s history to life, street by street, building by building, in all its diversity. The entries, organized in an easy-to-use format by street address, were culled from a number of sources—histories, biographies, newspapers, guidebooks, and maps. They range from amusing anecdotes to familiar and not-so-familiar historical events, from the Dutch New Amsterdam period to the present day. It is a truly unique guidebook for its historical viewpoint, and will delight those looking for a glimpse of New York City beyond Madison Avenue and Broadway.
The second edition is revised and updated for a new millennium, reflecting a constantly changing city, and is supplemented with additional anecdotes, and over a hundred new pictures and illustrations. It is even easier to use, with cross-street information, a more portable trim size, and 300 new and updated places of interest.
The momentous, outrageous, and often bizarre events chronicled here remind us that the history of New York tells the history of our nation. Clearly, the author has had a long love affair with his adopted home, has investigated its colorful past, and has concluded that he must share this great . . . metropolis with all of us.---—Leonard Kniffel, American Libraries, on the first edition
New York, that most fascinating of cities, has also, until very recent years, been the most vexingly self-destructive. In this valuable and impressively thorough historical guide, Patrick Bunyan brings together the vanished landmarks—Alfred Ely Beach's secretly-built subway, the superb Singer Building—with those that are still standing: the sedate, innocent-looking building where the ghastly Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire took place, 625 Madison A venue, where Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis reporter for her first day's work at Viking Press in September 1977, and the Stonewall. Street by street, block by block, All Around the Town summons up the lively ghosts that stand at your shoulder whenever you walk through Manhattan.---—Richard F. Snow, American Heritage Magazine, on the First Edition