Building New York

by Bruce Marshall

"The evolution of New York's built environment is chronicled in this history of both its architectural masterpieces and its brilliantly engineered infrastructure. With the immediacy only photography can capture we witness New York emerging in the years following the Civil War, spreading uptown, enfolding Central Park, bridging the rivers, tunneling the bedrock, scraping the sky." "As materials change from brick and brownstone to steel and later plate glass - a development supported, in part, by newly harnessed electricity and elevators - we can relive such moments as muddy Longacre Square's rebirth as neon-lit Times Square in the wake of the uptown relocation of the theaters and the city's "newspaper of record." Building New York traces the transformation of Fifth Avenue into a "millionaires' row" and the eastern edge of the Park into a museum enclave. It catalogues not merely the skyscrapers and public buildings but the department stores, stations and hotels, churches and airports, ex