Marvelous Manhattan
Marvelous Manhattan

Author: Reggie Nadelson

Publisher: Artisan

Published: 2021-04-13

Total Pages: 275

ISBN-13: 1648290647

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“A timely read. . . . [Nadelson’s] reporting, all from a personal lens, is up-to-date. . . . Like chocolate chips in a cookie, the book is studded with delicious photos old and new.” —Florence Fabricant, New York Times “A wonderfully lively, knowledgeable journey through the past and present of places that help make New York City what it is, and which we must cherish and (hopefully) preserve.” —Salman Rushdie New York might have Broadway, Times Square, and the Empire State Building, but the real heart and soul of the city can be found in the iconic places that have defined cool since “cool” became a word. Places like Di Palo’s in Little Italy, where you might stop in to pick up a little cheese only to find yourself in a long conversation—part friendly chat, part profound tutorial—with fourth-generation owner Lou Di Palo, sampling cheeses all the while. Or Raoul’s in SoHo, to enjoy a classic steak-frites in the company of downtown artists, celebrities, and dyed-in-the-wool locals. Or Minton’s Playhouse in Harlem, to be in the room where some young guys named Thelonious, Dizzy, and Charlie invented bebop. Or maybe Russ & Daughters, to pick up the city’s best lox and bagels, which they’ve been selling since 1914. A lifelong New Yorker, writer Reggie Nadelson celebrates her city and all the places that make it special. Part guidebook, part cultural history, part walk down memory lane, alive with the spirit and the grit of small, often family-owned businesses that have survived the Great Depression, World War II, 9/11, and the coronavirus lockdown, Marvelous Manhattan is a seductive and timely book for anyone who lives in New York, loves the city, lived there once, or wishes they had. Because that’s the thing about Manhattan: all you need to do is walk into the right place—say, Fanelli’s on Prince Street—sit down at the bar, order a drink, open this book, and suddenly you’re a New Yorker.

Avidly Reads Board Games
Avidly Reads Board Games

Author: Eric Thurm

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2019-10-08

Total Pages: 167

ISBN-13: 1479815829

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Avidly Reads is a series of short books about how culture makes us feel. Founded in 2012 by Sarah Blackwood and Sarah Mesle, Avidly—an online magazine supported by the Los Angeles Review of Books—specializes in short-form critical essays devoted to thinking and feeling. Avidly Reads is an exciting new series featuring books that are part memoir, part cultural criticism, each bringing to life the author’s emotional relationship to a cultural artifact or experience. Avidly Reads invites us to explore the surprising pleasures and obstacles of everyday life. Writer and critic Eric Thurm digs deep into his own experience as a board game enthusiast to explore the emotional and social rules that games create and reveal, telling a series of stories about a pastime that is also about relationships. From the outdated gender roles in Life and Mystery Date to the cutthroat, capitalist priorities of Monopoly and its socialist counterpart, Class Struggle, Thurm thinks through his ongoing rivalries with his siblings and ponders the ways games both upset and enforce hierarchies and relationships—from the familial to the geopolitical. Like sitting down at the table for family game night, Board Games is an engaging book of twists and turns, trivia, and nostalgia.

Notable New Yorkers of Manhattan’s Upper West Side
Notable New Yorkers of Manhattan’s Upper West Side

Author: Jim Mackin

Publisher: Fordham Univ Press

Published: 2020-11-24

Total Pages: 465

ISBN-13: 0823289311

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Nearly 600 captivating stories of notable former residents of Manhattan’s Upper West Side, some famous, some forgotten What do Humphrey Bogart and Patty Hill (co-author of “Happy Birthday,” the most popular song of all time) have in common? Both of them once lived in the neighborhood of Morningside Heights and Bloomingdale, a strip of land that runs from the 90s to 125th Street, between the Hudson River and Central Park. Spanning hundreds of years, Notable New Yorkers of Manhattan’s Upper West Side is a compilation of stories of nearly 600 former residents who once called Manhattan’s Upper West Side home. Profiling a rare selection of wildly diverse people who shaped the character of the area, author Jim Mackin introduces readers to its fascinating residents—some famous, such as George and Ira Gershwin and Thurgood Marshall, and some forgotten, such as Harriet Brooks, Augustus Meyers, and Elinor Smith. Brief biographies reveal intriguing facts about this group, which include scientists, explorers, historians, journalists, artists, entertainers, aviators, public officials, lawyers, judges, and some in a category too unique to label. This collection also promotes accomplished women who have been forgotten and spotlights The Old Community, a tight-knit African American enclave that included such talented and accomplished residents as Marcus Garvey, Billie Holiday, and Butterfly McQueen. The book is divided into five geographical sections: the West 90s, the West 100s, the West 110s, the West 120s, and Riverside Drive. Addresses are arranged in ascending order within each section, first by street number and then by street address number. While the focus is on people, the book includes an eclectic collection of interesting facts and colorful stories about the neighborhood itself, including the 9th Avenue El, Little Coney Island, and, notoriously, one of the most dangerous streets in the city, as well as songs and movies that were written and filmed in the neighborhood. Notable New Yorkers of Manhattan’s Upper West Side provides a unique overview of the people who shaped the neighborhood through their presence and serves as a guide to those who deserve to be recognized and remembered.

The Measure of Manhattan: The Tumultuous Career and Surprising Legacy of John Randel, Jr., Cartographer, Surveyor, Inventor
The Measure of Manhattan: The Tumultuous Career and Surprising Legacy of John Randel, Jr., Cartographer, Surveyor, Inventor

Author: Marguerite Holloway

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2013-02-18

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13: 0393089800

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"Randel is endlessly fascinating, and Holloway’s biography tells his life with great skill." —Steve Weinberg, USA Today John Randel Jr. (1787–1865) was an eccentric and flamboyant surveyor. Renowned for his inventiveness as well as for his bombast and irascibility, Randel was central to Manhattan’s development but died in financial ruin. Telling Randel’s engrossing and dramatic life story for the first time, this eye-opening biography introduces an unheralded pioneer of American engineering and mapmaking. Charged with “gridding” what was then an undeveloped, hilly island, Randel recorded the contours of Manhattan down to the rocks on its shores. He was obsessed with accuracy and steeped in the values of the Enlightenment, in which math and science promised dominion over nature. The result was a series of maps, astonishing in their detail and precision, which undergird our knowledge about the island today. During his varied career Randel created surveying devices, designed an early elevated subway, and proposed a controversial alternative route for the Erie Canal—winning him admirers and enemies. The Measure of Manhattan is more than just the life of an unrecognized engineer. It is about the ways in which surveying and cartography changed the ground beneath our feet. Bringing Randel’s story into the present, Holloway travels with contemporary surveyors and scientists trying to envision Manhattan as a wild island once again. Illustrated with dozens of historical images and antique maps, The Measure of Manhattan is an absorbing story of a fascinating man that captures the era when Manhattan—indeed, the entire country—still seemed new, the moment before canals and railroads helped draw a grid across the American landscape.

Ghosts of Manhattan
Ghosts of Manhattan

Author: Douglas Brunt

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2012-10-02

Total Pages: 269

ISBN-13: 1451672616

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This instant New York Times bestseller offers a withering view of life on Wall Street from the perspective of an unhappy insider who is too hooked on the money to find a way out, even as his career is ruining his marriage and corroding his soul. It’s 2005. Nick Farmer is a thirty-five-year-old bond trader with Bear Stearns clearing seven figures a year. The novelty of a work-related nightlife centering on liquor, hookers, and cocaine has long since worn thin, though Nick remains keenly addicted to his annual bonus. But the lifestyle is taking a toll on his marriage—and on him. When a nerdy analyst approaches him with apocalyptic prognostications of where Bear’s high-flying mortgage-backed securities trading may lead, Nick is presented with the kind of ethical dilemma he’s spent a lifetime avoiding. Throw in a hot financial journalist who seems to be more interested in him than in the percolating financial Armageddon and the prospect that his own wife may have found a new romantic interest of her own, and you have the recipe for Nick’s personal and professional implosion. By turns hilarious and harrowing, Ghosts of Manhattan follows a winning but flawed protagonist as he struggles to find the right path in a complicated urban heart of darkness

Madly Marvelous
Madly Marvelous

Author: Donna Zakowska

Publisher: Abrams

Published: 2021-11-23

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 1647004721

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From the award-winning costume designer of Amazon Prime Video's The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, a collection of the show’s costumes, with never-before-seen photography, sketches, production stills, and more Amazon Prime Video’s Emmy- and Golden Globe–winning series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel centers on Miriam "Midge" Maisel, a 1950s New York City woman whose seemingly perfect life suddenly takes an unexpected turn, taking her from a comfortable life on Riverside Drive through the basket houses and nightclubs of Greenwich Village as she embarks on a groundbreaking standup comedy career. Created by Amy Sherman-Palladino (creator and showrunner of Gilmore Girls), and starring Rachel Brosnahan, Alex Borstein, and Tony Shalhoub, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel has garnered fan and critical praise alike, with much of the attention focused on the exquisitely designed period costumes. Madly Marvelous: The Costumes of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel explores the inner workings of award-winning costume designer Donna Zakowska’s process, as well as the many inspirations for the show’s wardrobe, including period photography, American and European fashion trends, and the various cultures and countercultures of late-1950s New York. The clothes of Mrs. Maisel are gorgeous, authentically detailed, and carefully crafted. Illustrated with sketches, photographs from Zakowska’s workspace, behind-the-scenes shots, and production stills, the book follows the series from season to season, showing how the vocabulary of fashion—context, style, color, cut, accessories, and more—is integral to defining and developing the characters in the show. Madly Marvelous is a must-have for fans of the show and fashionistas alike, providing readers with a curated and well-informed look at an integral period in fashion history.

All the Restaurants in New York
All the Restaurants in New York

Author: John Donohue

Publisher: Abrams

Published: 2019-05-14

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 1683354915

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“An emotional trip down memory lane for those of us who count our favorite restaurants as cherished personalities and members of our family.” —Danny Meyer, founder of Shake Shack From romantic spots like Le Bernardin to beloved holes-in-the-wall like Corner Bistro, John Donohue renders people’s favorite restaurants in a manner that captures the emotional pull a certain place can have on the hearts of New Yorkers. All the Restaurants in New York is a collection of these drawings, characterized by their appealingly loose and gently distorted lines. These transportive images are intentionally spare, leaving the viewer room to layer on their own meaning and draw connections to their own memories of a place, of a time, of an atmosphere. Featuring an eclectic mix of 100 restaurants—from Minetta Tavern to Frankies 457 and River Café—this charming collection of drawings is accompanied by interviews with the owners, chefs, and loyal patrons of these much-loved restaurants. “I love John’s spare, romantic, quirky portrayals of iconic New York restaurants so much that I purchased over a dozen of his prints to hang around my office. These places come to define our lives in New York—that job right next to Balthazar, that boyfriend who lived above Prune, that interview that took place at ‘21’ . . . They deserve this spotlight, this tribute.” —Amanda Kludt, Editor in Chief, Eater “John Donohue is the Rembrandt of New York City’s restaurant facades. His collection is an invaluable, evocative guide to the ever-changing, slowly vanishing landscape of the city’s great dining scene. It belongs on the bookshelf of every devout chowhound and fresser.” —Adam Platt, Restaurant Critic, New York magazine

At Balthazar
At Balthazar

Author: Reggie Nadelson

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2017-04-04

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 1501116797

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Explore New York restaurant Balthazar and everything that makes it iconic in this brilliantly revealing book that celebrates the brasserie’s twentieth anniversary. Keith McNally, star restauranteur, gave author Reggie Nadelson unprecedented access to his legendary Soho brasserie, its staff, the archives, and the kitchens. Journalist Nadelson, who has covered restaurants and food for decades on both sides of the Atlantic, recounts the history of the French brasserie and how Keith McNally reinvented the concept for New York City. At Balthazar is an irresistible, mouthwatering narrative, driven by the drama of a restaurant that serves half a million meals a year, employs over two hundred people, and has operated on a twenty-four hour cycle for twenty years. Upstairs and down, good times and bad, Nadelson explores the intricacies of the restaurant’s every aspect, interviewing the chef, waiters, bartenders, dishwashers—the human element of the beautifully oiled machine. With evocative color photographs by Peter Nelson, sixteen new recipes from Balthazar Executive Chef Shane McBride and head bakers Paula Oland and Mark Tasker, At Balthazar voluptuously celebrates an amazing institution.

Another Marvelous Thing
Another Marvelous Thing

Author: Laurie Colwin

Publisher: Open Road Media

Published: 2014-11-18

Total Pages: 130

ISBN-13: 149767378X

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“Witty, literate and intelligent” linked stories that follow an extramarital affair from beginning to end, by the author of Happy All the Time (The New York Times Book Review). Josephine “Billy” Delielle and Francis Clemens are sleeping together. Both are economists and both are married to other people, but the similarities end there. He is fastidious; she is a slob. He delights in good food and fine wine; her refrigerator is always empty. He is old and sentimental; she is young and tough minded. This is not his first extramarital dalliance; she never imagined it was possible to love anyone but her husband. The desire that Billy and Francis feel for each other is as inexplicable as it is undeniable, and the moments they steal together are electrifying, tense, and reassuring all at once. Told from the alternating perspectives of two adulterous lovers, Another Marvelous Thing is an exquisitely crafted story collection that tackles the thorniest of subjects with honesty, grace, and humor. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Laurie Colwin including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s estate.

When the Earth Had Two Moons
When the Earth Had Two Moons

Author: Erik Asphaug

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2019-10-29

Total Pages: 424

ISBN-13: 0062657941

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An astonishing exploration of planet formation and the origins of life by one of the world’s most innovative planetary geologists. In 1959, the Soviet probe Luna 3 took the first photos of the far side of the moon. Even in their poor resolution, the images stunned scientists: the far side is an enormous mountainous expanse, not the vast lava-plains seen from Earth. Subsequent missions have confirmed this in much greater detail. How could this be, and what might it tell us about our own place in the universe? As it turns out, quite a lot. Fourteen billion years ago, the universe exploded into being, creating galaxies and stars. Planets formed out of the leftover dust and gas that coalesced into larger and larger bodies orbiting around each star. In a sort of heavenly survival of the fittest, planetary bodies smashed into each other until solar systems emerged. Curiously, instead of being relatively similar in terms of composition, the planets in our solar system, and the comets, asteroids, satellites and rings, are bewitchingly distinct. So, too, the halves of our moon. In When the Earth Had Two Moons, esteemed planetary geologist Erik Asphaug takes us on an exhilarating tour through the farthest reaches of time and our galaxy to find out why. Beautifully written and provocatively argued, When the Earth Had Two Moons is not only a mind-blowing astronomical tour but a profound inquiry into the nature of life here—and billions of miles from home.