Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New YorkMacmillan + ORM, 8 mar. 2016 - 584 pagini The classic social history of corruption and vice in nineteenth-century NYC: “A cacophonous poem of democracy and greed, like the streets of New York themselves” (John Vernon, Los Angeles Times Book Review). Lucy Sante’s Low Life is a portrait of America’s greatest city, the riotous and anarchic breeding ground of modernity. This is not the familiar saga of mansions, avenues, and robber barons, but the messy, turbulent, often murderous story of the city’s slums; the teeming streets—scene of innumerable cons and crimes whose cramped and overcrowded housing is still a prominent feature of the cityscape. Low Life voyages through Manhattan from four different directions. Part One examines the actual topography of Manhattan from 1840 to 1919; Part Two, the era’s opportunities for vice and entertainment—theaters and saloons, opium and cocaine dens, gambling and prostitution; Part Three investigates the forces of law and order which did and didn’t work to contain the illegalities; Part Four counterposes the city’s tides of revolt and idealism against the city as it actually was. Low Life is one of the most provocative books about urban life ever written—an evocation of the mythology of the quintessential modern metropolis, which has much to say not only about New York’s past but about the present and future of all cities. |
Din interiorul cărții
Pagina
... sort of topographical ancestry . Manhattan's largest body of water was the Collect Pond ( a corruption of the Dutch " Kalchhook , " or Lime Shell Point ) , which lay approximately within the bounds of the present - day streets Franklin ...
... sort of topographical ancestry . Manhattan's largest body of water was the Collect Pond ( a corruption of the Dutch " Kalchhook , " or Lime Shell Point ) , which lay approximately within the bounds of the present - day streets Franklin ...
Pagina
... sort of museum or old curiosity shop , and I think Barnum would do well to buy the whole concern , men , women , and goods , and have it in his world of curiosities on the corner of Ann and Broadway.7 The Bowery was the place not only ...
... sort of museum or old curiosity shop , and I think Barnum would do well to buy the whole concern , men , women , and goods , and have it in his world of curiosities on the corner of Ann and Broadway.7 The Bowery was the place not only ...
Pagina
... sort of logic in the flux do not fare well in retrospect . A 1904 observer , for example , thought he had located a natural order of sorts : It is a curious fact that the poor French usually move into districts from which the negroes ...
... sort of logic in the flux do not fare well in retrospect . A 1904 observer , for example , thought he had located a natural order of sorts : It is a curious fact that the poor French usually move into districts from which the negroes ...
Pagina
... sort of mask . This was the time when frontier towns presented Main Streets of imposing two- and three - story fronts which were merely billboards ; the actual edifices were single - story shacks . From such pretense to the false fronts ...
... sort of mask . This was the time when frontier towns presented Main Streets of imposing two- and three - story fronts which were merely billboards ; the actual edifices were single - story shacks . From such pretense to the false fronts ...
Pagina
... sort of super - tenement . Before the late tenement phase lay decades ' worth of unbelievable rookeries . What all sorts of tenements have in common is the principle of containing the greatest number of people in the least amount of ...
... sort of super - tenement . Before the late tenement phase lay decades ' worth of unbelievable rookeries . What all sorts of tenements have in common is the principle of containing the greatest number of people in the least amount of ...
Termeni și expresii frecvente
American arrested became began blocks bohemian Bowery Boys boxes Broadway Brooklyn Brown Brothers buildings called cards Charles Chatham Chatham Square Chinatown Chinese Chuck Connors city's Civil Club Connors cops crowd dance Dead Rabbits decades district dives dollar door drink early East Side established eventually featured fight fire Five Points floor Fourteenth Street gambler gambling gangs gangsters George girls Greenwich Village Harlem Hell's Kitchen Hotel houses hundred Irish Island Jack Jacob Riis John killed known later Lexow Committee lived lotteries Lower East Side Manhattan Market Mock Duck Morrissey movie murder Museum neighborhood night nineteenth century opened opium P. T. Barnum Park Parkhurst Photograph play police political popular prostitutes raided reform riots River rooms saloon slums sort Square stage Tammany Hall Tenderloin tenements thieves Third Avenue turn Tweed uptown vice Ward West Whyos William women York City