City Hall is the first book to feature striking contemporary images of the most architecturally significant city halls in the United States. This diverse collection includes New York, the oldest; Philadelphia, once the tallest building in the world; and Boston, the first major brutalist building in the United States. Organized chronologically, the book traces the evolution of American civic architecture from the early 19th century to the present day and represents diverse styles such as Federalist, art deco, and modern. Architects, current and former mayors, historians, and preservationists tell the story about how each city hall came to be, what it says about its city, and why it's important architecturally. With a foreword by noted historian Douglas Brinkley and an essay by architectural writer Thomas Mellins, City Hall spotlights these often underappreciated civic buildings and affirms architecture's unique power to express democratic ideals and inspire civic engagement.
At the crossroads of Center City, Philadelphia, stands city hall, an architectural and sculptural masterpiece whose size and beauty rival the grand structures found in the capitals of Europe. Shortly after the Civil War, city hall embraced the community's need for a new municipal building while filling the visionary desire of its designers to underscore Philadelphia's reputation as "the Athens of America." Thirty years later stood a monumental structure that was easily the largest building in North America and one of the most beautiful, displaying over two hundred fifty pieces of sculpture. Philadelphia's City Hall illuminates the fascinating account of the building's controversial origin, its symbolic sculptural program, and the largest statue topping a building in the world. These stunning photographs highlight a marvel of masonry and community vision created by a city with the desire to show the world what it could produce.
From the 1950s to the end of the twentieth century, Boston transformed from a city in freefall into a thriving metropolis, as modern glass skyscrapers sprouted up in the midst of iconic brick rowhouses. After decades of corruption and graft, a new generation of politicians swept into office, seeking to revitalize Boston through large-scale urban renewal projects. The most important of these was a new city hall, which they hoped would project a bold vision of civic participation. The massive Brutalist building that was unveiled in 1962 stands apart -- emblematic of the city's rebirth through avant-garde design. And yet Boston City Hall frequently ranks among the country's ugliest buildings. Concrete Changes seeks to answer a common question for contemporary viewers: How did this happen? In a lively narrative filled with big personalities and newspaper accounts, Brian M. Sirman argues that this structure is more than a symbol of Boston's modernization; it acted as a catalyst for political, social, and economic change.
Providing a critical examination of government in American cities, this volume presents the innovative view that mayors in council-manager cities are better positioned to develop positive leadership than their peers in mayor-council cities. This book develops a deeper understanding of city government institutions with an examination of groundbreaking conceptual model of leadership and how it relates to local government forms. Based on the observation of mayors who have served in the past decade in cities ranging in size from 1500 to 1.5 million, fourteen case studies evaluate factors that contribute to effective leadership and highlight emerging issues faced by today‘s cities.
"Breathtaking . . . A tightly woven spiderweb of plot and a rich cast of characters make this a truly gripping read." —Jeffery Deaver, author of The Bodies Left Behind It should be an open–and–shut case. Canada's leading radio–show host, Kevin Brace, has confessed to killing his young wife. He had come to the door of his luxury condominium with his hands covered in blood and told the newspaper deliveryman: "I killed her." His wife's body lay in the bathtub of their suite, fatal knife wound just below the sternum. Now all that should remain is legal procedure: document the crime scene, prosecute the case, and be done with it. The trouble is, Brace refuses to talk to anyone—including his own lawyer—after muttering those incriminating words. With the discovery that the victim was actually a self-destructive alcoholic, the appearance of strange fingerprints at the crime scene, and a revealing courtroom cross-examination, the seemingly simple case begins to take on all the complexities of a hotly–contested murder trial. In the tradition of defense lawyers–turned–authors such as Scott Turow and John Grisham, Toronto-based defense counsel Robert Rotenberg delivers a debut legal thriller rich with his forensic skill. Firmly rooted in Toronto, from the ancient Don Jail to the sterile morgue and the shadowy corridors of the historic courthouse, Old City Hall takes the reader inside clattering Italian restaurants and late-night greasy spoons—and outside, to open-air skating rinks and parade-filled streets. Rotenberg leads us on a fascinating tour of a city as exciting and vital as the motley ensemble populating his story: there's Awotwe Amankwah, the only black reporter covering the crime; Judge Johnathan Summers, an old navy captain who runs his courtroom like he's still standing astride the foredeck; Edna Wingate, an eighty-three year old British war bride who just loves hot yoga; and Daniel Kennicott, a former big-firm lawyer who became a cop after his brother was murdered and the investigation hit a dead end. Douglas Preston rejoices that Rotenberg's Toronto settings "make this most multicultural city in North America come alive." Elmore Leonard has Florida; John Lescroart, San Francisco; Robert B. Parker, Boston; Scott Turow, Chicago; George Pelecanos, D.C. And now, with Old City Hall, Rotenberg offers us a page-turning legal thriller set in a diverse and surprising Toronto filled with unexpected characters and plot twists that keep you guessing until the very end.
In 1983, Boston and Chicago elected progressive mayors with deep roots among community activists. Taking office as the Reagan administration was withdrawing federal aid from local governments, Boston's Raymond Flynn and Chicago's Harold Washington implemented major policies that would outlast them. More than reforming governments, they changed the substance of what the government was trying to do: above all, to effect a measure of redistribution of resources to the cities' poor and working classes and away from hollow goals of "growth" as measured by the accumulation of skyscrapers. In Boston, Flynn moderated an office development boom while securing millions of dollars for affordable housing. In Chicago, Washington implemented concrete measures to save manufacturing jobs, against the tide of national policy and trends. Activists in City Hall examines how both mayors achieved their objectives by incorporating neighborhood activists as a new organizational force in devising, debating, implementing, and shaping policy. Based in extensive archival research enriched by details and insights gleaned from hours of interviews with key figures in each administration and each city's activist community, Pierre Clavel argues that key to the success of each mayor were numerous factors: productive contacts between city hall and neighborhood activists, strong social bases for their agendas, administrative innovations, and alternative visions of the city. Comparing the experiences of Boston and Chicago with those of other contemporary progressive cities—Hartford, Berkeley, Madison, Santa Cruz, Santa Monica, Burlington, and San Francisco—Activists in City Hall provides a new account of progressive urban politics during the Reagan era and offers many valuable lessons for policymakers, city planners, and progressive political activists.
For twelves years Peter F. Vallone was, after the mayor, the most powerful political official in New York City. This book is the story of how he got from a clubhouse in Astoria to the levers of power in City Hall--in the process overturning, with the help of the U.S. Supreme Court, the very structure of the city's government. It is simultaneously a chronicle of New York City politics over the past thirty-five years. Although a major figure in New York State (he was Democratic candidate for Governor in 1998), and for a while even in national politics, Vallone never left his roots in a typical New York City neighborhood. A strong family man, a strong Catholic, a loyal Democrat, he was notorious for fighting for the "common man" as well as the amateur legislator. He was the ideal foil for three of New York City's most colorful mayors: Ed Koch, David Dinkins, and Rudy Giuliiani. A seeming anomaly in an age of media saturation, Vallone's story is both vital history and a primer in tolerance and good government.
