Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City
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Product Description
How much do you really know about New York City? Did you know they tried to attach Zeppelins at the top of the Empire State Building? Or that the high-rent district of Park Avenue was once so treacherous it was called “Death Avenue”? Lively and comprehensive, Inside the Apple brings to life New York’s fascinating past.
This narrative history of New York City is the first to offer practical walking tour know-how. Quick-paced but thorough, its bite-size chapters each focus on an event, person, or place of past significance. Rich in anecdotes and illustrations, it whisks readers from colonial New Amsterdam through Manhattan’s past, right up to post-9/11 New York. The book also works as a past walking-tour guide, with 14 self-guided tours, maps, and step-by-step directions. Simple to carry with you as you explore the city, Inside the Apple allows you to visit the site of every tale it tells. This energetic, wide-ranging, and regularly humorous book covers New York’s most vital past moments, but is permanently anchored in the city of today.
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The book provides two pieces — one is a past accounting of Manhattan with some appealing anecdotes along the way and the additional is a bunch of suggested self-guided tours. On the ex-, it succeeds reasonably nicely. I could have done lacking the later, but if you consider that a bonus, the book still works for me. In particular there are some appealing tales, corrections about common misconceptions and trivia about the people and places of Manhattan.
Also, I regularly deduct points from “New York City” guides of any sort that are really guides to Manhattan. In this case, the book follows the logical history of the city from a time when Manhattan had no peer boroughs. I would forgive this slight, but the authors try to incorporate a few things about Brooklyn, which is simply a distraction. Either take in everything or just Manhattan, but I despise lip service to the ‘additional’ boroughs.
In synopsis, as a New Yorker, I value books about ‘my’ city that tell me things I did not know before. By providing past tidbits from the point of view of tour guides, this provides some nice past fodder that was new to me. I would certainly recommend it to City residents as well as visitors who want some flavor regarding NYC.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5
In this book, NYC tour operators Michelle and James Nevius explore NYC history within a chronological framework interweaving personalities, landmarks, buildings, and events. The result is a truly fascinating look at New York City and a must-have for anyone with any interest in the history of New York. Inside the Apple is not proposed as an analysis or interpretation of NYC history but if you take it with you the next time you ramble through the streets of Manhattan, I guarantee you’ll find this book a real eye-opener. Although the book is subtitled: A Streetwise History of New York City, the coverage is limited nearly exclusively to Manhattan with some honestly minimal coverage of Brooklyn. As the authors point out in their introduction, “the rich histories of Queens, The Bronx, and Staten Island will have to wait for another volume.” In addition to the past section, the authors have helpfully provided directions for 14 individual walking tours that enable you to visit these vital landmarks easily and efficiently. I would have awarded five stars to Inside the Apple if it weren’t for the lack of a bibliography (for the serious student, sometimes the bibliography is of greater interest than the text). Although the book isn’t so compact that you can stuff it into a jacket pocket, it’s tiny and light enough so that you can carry it around lacking feeling burdened. Highly recommended!
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5
Fantastic, brief history to help us wander the streets. Wanted to see more maps as I was reading, but I am still an info junkie and loved it!
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
Brilliant past synopsis of Manhattan. The authors give you essential history behind the neighborhoods, street names, statues, and buildings that you’re likely to encounter walking around NYC.
I establish their accounts of 18th and 19th century past events particularly valuable.
The walking tours at the end of the book are a bit confusing. The maps don’t so much as guide you down particular streets as much as they show you key landmarks in a point neighborhood (and then cite numerically back to parts in the book’s primary text). Nevertheless, I’m going to New York in two weeks and fully plot to do both of the first tours centered in Lower Manhattan and the Financial District.
If the authors wish to improve this book, they could add a few more pictures, improve the walking tour maps, and add some additional post-1960’s history. Otherwise, brilliant book. I’m very pleased that I pulled the trigger and bought this from Amazon.com.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
Inside the Apple is a must for all who like NYC. (Also suggest buying their previous Frommer’s book).
I so loved reading it and have bought additional copies for several friends.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5