Told from the perspective of a cantankerous man named Deidrick Knickerbocker, A Knickerbocker's History of New York depicts a satirical history spanning from the world's creation to the end of the Dutch dynasty. Beginning with the start of time itself, Knickerbocker reveals historical anecdotes, both real and imagined featuring social commentary, fresh perspectives on the past, and conversations with powerful historical figures. With humor and intrigue,...

This nineteenth-century novel by the author of Rip Van Winkle offers a satirical history of New York, from the creation of the world to the fall of New Amsterdam. Washington Irving's debut novel, Knickerbocker's History of New York was an immediate sensation when it was first published in 1809. Posing as the work of a fictional Dutch historian named Dietrich Knickerbocker, it both catapulted Irving's literary reputation and established the "Father...

"In Greater Gotham Mike Wallace, co-author of GOTHAM, picks up the story of New York at the critical juncture of 1898 and carries it forward during the period when it became not just the country's greatest urban center but a megapolis on an international scale, and with global reach. Between consolidation and the end of World War One, New York was transformed and transforming, mirroring the juggernauting dynamism of the country at large--and largely...

New York is the greatest restaurant city the world has ever seen. In Appetite City, the former New York Times restaurant critic William Grimes leads us on a grand historical tour of New York's dining culture. Beginning with the era when simple chophouses and oyster bars dominated the culinary scene, he charts the city's transformation into the world restaurant capital it is today. Appetite City takes us on a unique and delectable journey, from the...

"It was the street your mother warned you about--even if you lived in San Francisco. Long associated with skid row, saloons, freak shows, violence, and vice, the Bowery often showed the worst New York City had to offer. Yet there were times when it showed its best as well. The Bowery is New York's oldest street and Manhattan's broadest boulevard. Like the city itself, it has continually reinvented itself over the centuries. Named for the Dutch farms,...

A cultural history of World War II-era New York explores how the city emerged as a world capital and became the home of famed politicians, gangsters, and celebrities.

"Bits and pieces of the lives led long before the age of skyscrapers are scattered throughout New York City, found in backyards, construction sites, street beds, and parks. Pottery shards dating to 600 CE, wine jugs from the Dutch taverns around City Hall, a child's shoe from the Black settlement in Central Park called Seneca Village, raspberry and rhododendron seeds sown in backyard Brooklyn gardens-these everyday objects are windows into the city's...

One Day University presents a series of video lectures recorded in real-time from some of the top minds in the United States. Given by award-winning professors and experts in their field, these recorded lectures dive deep into the worlds of religion, government, literature, and social justice.NYU Professor and New York Times Reporter Sam Roberts has chosen twenty objects that embody the narrative and history of New York City. To capture it in so few...

"Clifton Hood traces the history of the elite class of New York City and the institutions they created in their relentless pursuit of privilege. While they were responsible for the creation of intuitions such as Columbia University, the New York Public Library system, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and provided skilled leadership in eras of immense turmoil, the idea of a privileged class clashes with the American democratic ideal. And, in fact,...