New York City
- LAST REVIEWED: 12 January 2022
- LAST MODIFIED: 12 January 2022
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780190922467-0066
- LAST REVIEWED: 12 January 2022
- LAST MODIFIED: 12 January 2022
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780190922467-0066
Introduction
The island of Manhattan is one of five boroughs that comprises modern-day New York City. Joining the neighboring boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island, the City of New York was consolidated as such in 1898. While part of a larger whole, “New York City architecture” typically refers to the built environment of Manhattan. Indeed, the iconic image of contemporary New York City is the Manhattan skyline. Its tall buildings have historically been concentrated in the Financial District on the southern tip of the island, and in Midtown, although recent developments have seen these traditional boundaries expand northward and to the outer boroughs. By the early 1700s, the Native Lenape population had largely been displaced by colonists—first the Dutch, who named their community on the southern tip of Manhattan New Amsterdam, and later the British, who again rechristened this area New York. As a result of the near-continuous cycle of demolition and construction that has characterized so much of New York’s history, little evidence of the earliest structures—both Native and European—survives. Yet the Dutch and British settlements laid the ground work for future expansion. With a population concentrated at the southern tip of the island, subsequent development continuously pushed northward. Infrastructure projects like the Brooklyn Bridge, completed in 1883, physically connected Manhattan to then-neighboring city of Brooklyn, and subsequent bridges and tunnels further linked the island to its surroundings, creating a regional metropolis. Because of New York’s significance to national history—for a short time, it was the capital of the early Republic, and in the 20th and 21st centuries it is a capital of finance, media, and visual culture—literature on the city’s built environment is vast. This bibliography thus proceeds from general resources to a chronology that begins in the late 18th century, and continues up to recent developments in the architecture and urban planning that shape the city in the early 21st century.
General Overviews
The long and varied history of New York City’s built environment lends itself to more specialized study of a particular building type, stylistic category, or time period. But of the more general overviews, Reynolds 1994 succinctly covers New York’s architectural history from the early Dutch settlement to the 1960s. Plunz 2016 focuses specifically on housing from the 1850s until the early 21st century. Many generalist texts are written as guidebooks, and for this reason focus on notable extant architectural examples. White, et al. 2010 documents both individual landmarks and historic districts. Gura and Wood 2018 explores a selection of interior landmarks. This category also includes cultural histories that foreground architecture and urbanism. Koolhaas 1997 is a classic text that connects Manhattan’s dense urbanism to the larger culture of New York. Bender 2002 similarly links urban planning and the built environment to the cultural and political context of the city. Symmes 2005 utilizes artists’ portrayals of the city to showcase the evolution of New York’s buildings and landscape.
Bender, Thomas. The Unfinished City: New York and the Metropolitan Idea. New York: W. W. Norton, 2002.
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Thematic essays from an urban historian. Centers Manhattan within larger national themes of culture and politics. Part 1, “Icons of Transformation,” is most focused on specific architectural case studies.
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Gura, Judith, and Kate Wood. Interior Landmarks: Treasures of New York. New York: Monacelli Press, 2018.
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The first publication to focus specifically on Landmark-designated interiors. Includes forty-seven examples of the currently listed 120 interior landmarks in all five boroughs. Organized chronologically from the oldest building to the most recent. Includes history and significance of the interior, and how it came to be landmarked.
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Koolhaas, Rem. Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan. Rev. ed. New York: Monacelli Press, 1997.
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A polemical text from the Dutch architect and theorist first published in 1978 and subsequently reprinted. Explores New York’s built history through the lens of density.
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Plunz, Richard. A History of Housing in New York City. Rev. ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016.
DOI: 10.7312/plun17834Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
Thorough overview of residential architecture in Manhattan from the 1850s. Considers the full spectrum of socioeconomic status.
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Reynolds, Donald Martin. The Architecture of New York City: Histories and Views of Important Structures, Sites, and Symbols. Rev. ed. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley, 1994.
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Historical overview of New York architecture from 17th-century Dutch settlement to the 1960s. Chapters on the early history are organized chronologically; 19th century and later are organized typologically.
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Symmes, Marilyn. Impressions of New York: Prints from the New-York Historical Society. New York: Princeton Architectural Press in collaboration with the New-York Historical Society, 2005.
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Collection of nearly 150 artistic portrayals of the city in the Historical Society’s collection, dating from the 18th century to the 21st. Published on occasion of the New-York Historical Society’s bicentennial.
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White, Norval, Elliot Willensky, and Fran Leadon. AIA Guide to New York City. 5th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
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Accessible guide to Landmark-designated buildings and districts in all five boroughs and interstitial islands. Organized geographically, each entry includes attribution information and short contextual history. Not all entries include photographs.
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Reference Works
An invaluable documentary resource that exhaustively catalogs New York’s architectural evolution from the 1860s to the early 21st century is architect Robert A. M. Stern’s so-called “New York series”—a five-part chronology penned by Stern and a rotating cast of coauthors. The series offers a building-by-building, block-by-block accounting of the city’s architecture and urban planning. Stern, et al. 1999 examines architecture alongside the infrastructural and technological changes that facilitated the city’s expansion in the post–Civil War era. Stern, et al. 1983 documents the end of the 19th century through the 1920s. Stern, et al. 1987 covers the period from the Depression to the Second World War. Stern, et al. 1995 explores the city’s post–World War II boom, from the immediate postwar era through nascent Modernism, and the Postmodern movement of the 1970s. Stern, et al. 2006 concludes the series with New York’s resurgence as an urban center in the 1980s and 1990s, and the architectural development of post–September 11th (2001) New York. This category also includes more focused typological, stylistic, and geographical studies. Lockwood, et al. 2019 is an updated edition of a classic study on the ubiquitous row house. Cromley 1998 looks at the evolution of the apartment building and its social implications for urban life. Gayle 1974 is a valuable reference on New York’s cast iron structures. Murphy and Reilly 2017 combines the stylistic and typological with a study of the so-called “skyscraper Gothic” buildings of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Landau and Condit 1996 explores the first generation of tall buildings, while Willis 1995 situates tall building design and construction within larger market forces in New York and Chicago. Murphy and Rochleau 2008 documents a series of residential structures in the historic Greenwich Village neighborhood.
Cromley, Elizabeth Collins. Alone Together: A History of New York’s Early Apartments. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998.
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In-depth study of New York’s early multifamily apartment buildings. Chronicles the novelty of the building type and initial middle- and upper-class resistance to communal living, alongside analysis of the design and promotion of early apartment buildings. A range of case studies, from tenement buildings to luxury apartments.
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Gayle, Margot. Cast-Iron Architecture in New York: A Photographic Survey. New York: Dover, 1974.
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Study of architect-inventor James Bogardus, and the evolution of early cast iron structures in the United States. Chapters include buildings outside of New York, but focus is on structures in the city. Includes chronological list of cast iron structures erected in the United States.
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Landau, Sarah Bradford, and Carl W. Condit. The Rise of the New York Skyscraper, 1865–1913. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996.
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A classic study of New York’s early tall buildings. Contextualizes both practicality and symbolism of building tall through in-depth case studies of individual buildings. Explores design aesthetics alongside technological and material evolution.
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Lockwood, Charles, Patrick W. Ciccone, and Jonathan D. Taylor. Bricks & Brownstone: The New York Row House. 3d ed. New York: Rizzoli, 2019.
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Thorough exploration of the building type from the Colonial era to the 1910s. The first edition, published in 1972, contributed to a renewed interest in the building type. Organized by stylistic category.
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Murphy, Kevin D., and Lisa Reilly, eds. Skyscraper Gothic: Medieval Style and Modernist Buildings. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2017.
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A thoughtful series of case studies that reexamines medievalist skyscrapers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, such as the Woolworth Building (New York City) and the Chicago Tribune Tower. Each essay focuses closely on a single building. Includes thorough bibliography. Collectively, seeks to resituate Gothic skyscrapers within the Modernist history of the building type, rather than contrary to it.
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Murphy, Kevin D., and Paul Rochleau. The Houses of Greenwich Village. New York: Abrams, 2008.
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Chapters and original photography explore eighteen houses and two gardens, alongside the evolution and development of the historic neighborhood.
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Stern, Robert A. M., David Fishman, and Jacob Tilove. New York 2000: Architecture and Urbanism between the Bicentennial and the Millennium. New York: Monacelli Press, 2006.
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The most recently published in the series. Explores ongoing development and redevelopment of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Commentary on the September 11th (2001) attacks on the World Trade Center and the subsequent impact on architecture and development is woven through. Organized geographically, including the outer boroughs.
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Stern, Robert A. M., Gregory Gilmartin, and Thomas Mellins. New York 1930: Architecture and Urbanism between the Two World Wars. New York: Monacelli Press, 1987.
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An in-depth documentation of New York’s architecture during the interwar years.
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Stern, Robert A. M., John M. Massengale, and Gregory Gilmartin. New York 1900: Metropolitan Architecture and Urbanism 1890–1915. New York: Monacelli Press, 1983.
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The first volume published in what would become a five-part series. Covers the period from 1890 to World War I.
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Stern, Robert A. M., Thomas Mellins, and David Fishman. New York 1960: Architecture and Urbanism between the Second World War and the Bicentennial. New York: Monacelli Press, 1995.
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Covers key developments in architectural style including the ascendancy of International Style Modernism, the impact of the 1961 zoning legislation, and the birth of the historic preservation movement. Organized geographically, including the outer boroughs and major suburbs.
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Stern, Robert A. M., Thomas Mellins, and David Fishman. New York 1880: Architecture and Urbanism in the Gilded Age. New York: Monacelli Press, 1999.
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Covers the period from the late 1860s to the 1890s. Documents stylistic shifts alongside evolving building typologies, and the beginning of tall structures. Chapters are organized by building type.
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Willis, Carol. Form Follows Finance: Skyscrapers and Skylines in New York and Chicago. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Architectural Press, 1995.
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A foundational study of the market forces that shaped skyscraper design and construction in the two cities. Argues against the trope, established by earlier authors, of privileging either Manhattan’s height or Chicago’s nascent Modernist tendencies. Looks instead to the particularities of real estate and zoning in each city to account for local conditions.
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Digital Resources
There are a number of invaluable research resources for New York’s historic and contemporary buildings such as documents, drawings, and photographic archives. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission reports provide detailed documentation for the more than 36,000 designated buildings and sites including individual buildings and interiors, historic districts, and district extensions. The New York City Municipal Archives houses a searchable collection of the Department of Buildings drawings and plans for Lower Manhattan, 1866–1978. The New York Public Library Digital Collections include a number of subset collections that document the architecture and built environment of New York. Similarly, the Museum of the City of New York Digital Collections has an extensive collection of models, photographs, and renderings of New York architecture, street scenes, and transportation. The New-York Historical Society collection contains relevant photographic collections. The digital resources of the Skyscraper Museum track the evolution and development of that building type, including the recent phenomenon of “supertall” structures.
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Digitized drawings filed for permit applications with the Department of Buildings between 1866 and 1978. Covers the 958 blocks that comprise Lower Manhattan (to 34th Street), including a small quantity outside that geographic area.
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Museum of the City of New York Digital Collections.
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Digitized materials including photographs, prints, drawings, and ephemera. Of particular relevance are the collected archives of several notable photographers that captured individual buildings, interiors, and street scenes. These holdings include the work of Berenice Abbott, the Byron Company, Edmund V. Gillon, Jacob A. Riis, Arthur Rothstein, and the Wurts Brothers.
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New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.
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Digitized collection of the Landmarks Preservation Commission designation reports, including individual buildings, interiors, and historic district. Reports provide in-depth description and analysis, historical overview, rationale for landmark status, and bibliographic references (where available), as well as documentary plans and photos at the time of designation.
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Digitized collections of fine art, prints, drawings, and ephemera. Includes an extensive collection of photographs of New York City.
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New York Public Library Digital Collections.
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A subset of the Library’s vast digital collections is devoted specifically to New York City. Includes atlases, business directories, and a number of photographic collections.
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Includes a broad variety of digital resources such as digitized archive collections, an excellent library of recorded book talks and topical lectures, and online exhibitions that explore the history and evolution of New York’s tall buildings. Digital resources related to the recent phenomenon of luxury “supertall” skyscrapers are particularly helpful in tracking this still-evolving type.
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Architectural Criticism
The work of architecture and design critics can aid the researcher in understanding and contextualizing the reception of buildings over time. Further, since the 19th century, architectural criticism has played an important role in shaping public perception and taste. The texts cited in this section are not exclusively focused on the analysis of New York buildings. However, all of the writers included were, or are, based in New York, and their collected works include numerous commentaries on the city constantly taking shape around them. Gebhard 1996 contains a selection of 19th-century critic Mariana Griswold (Mrs. Schuyler) van Rensselaer’s writings on architecture, decorative arts, and landscape. The two volumes of Jordy and Coe 1961 contain writing of the noted critic Montgomery Schuyler. Wojtowicz 1998 is a selected collection of Lewis Mumford’s essays for The New Yorker during the pivotal years of the 1930s. Like Mumford, Pulitzer Prize winner Ada Louise Huxtable’s architectural criticism was highly regarded in the field. Her writing from the 1960s and 1970s is comprised in Huxtable 1986; Huxtable 2010 covers a more broad-ranging survey of work for a number of outlets. Ouroussoff 2009 collects the extensive writing of critic Herbert Muschamp. Goldberger 1983 encapsulates nearly a decade’s worth of criticism for the New York Times. Goldberger 2009 is drawn from essays in The New Yorker.
Gebhard, David, ed. Accents as Well as Broad Effects: Writings on Architecture, Landscape, and the Environment, 1876–1925. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1996.
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A selection of essays by Mariana Griswold (Mrs. Schuyler) van Rensselaer. Part 1 and Part 2 are most relevant to van Rensselaer’s architectural criticism of New York buildings.
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Goldberger, Paul. On the Rise: Architecture and Design in a Postmodern Age. New York: Times Books, 1983.
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Goldberger’s New York Times essays spanning the years 1974–1983. Not exclusively focused on New York architecture.
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Goldberger, Paul. Building Up and Tearing Down: Reflections on the Age of Architecture. New York: Monacelli Press, 2009.
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A collection of fifty-seven essays, primarily from Goldberg’s “Skyline” series in The New Yorker.
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Huxtable, Ada Louise. Goodbye History, Hello Hamburger: An Anthology of Architectural Delights and Disasters. New York: Random House, 1986.
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A collection of the critic’s essay, primarily from the 1960s and 1970s, for the New York Times. Huxtable, a champion of the historic preservation movement, was particularly concerned with the prevalent destruction of historic structures taking place. Reprint.
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Huxtable, Ada Louise. On Architecture: Collected Reflections on a Century of Change. London: Walker Books, 2010.
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Wide-ranging collection of the critic’s essays from The New York Review of Books, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. Reprint.
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Jordy, William H., and Ralph Coe, eds. American Architecture and Other Writings. 2 vols. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1961.
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The collected writings of late-19th-/early-20th-century critic Montgomery Schuyler.
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Ouroussoff, Nicolai , ed. Hearts of the City: The Selected Writings of Herbert Muschamp. New York: Alfred Knopf, 2009.
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A collection of the critic’s work for Artforum and The New Republic, with a focus on writing for the New York Times.
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Wojtowicz, Robert, ed. Sidewalk Critic: Lewis Mumford’s New York. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1998.
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A volume of selected essays drawn primarily from the prolific critic’s “Sky Line” column for The New Yorker. These fifty columns span the pivotal decade of the 1930s, and include built projects such as Rockefeller Center, Williamsburg Houses, and the 1939 World’s Fair.
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New York in the Long Nineteenth Century
This section covers scholarship on New York architecture from the late 18th to the early 20th century. Two sections are divided chronologically by the Civil War. This was a period of incredible transformation marked by geographic expansion of the city from Lower Manhattan northward, and an explosion in population density. In fact, rather than a particular architectural typology or style that was unique to the burgeoning metropolis, what distinguished New York in the antebellum years were the forward-looking infrastructural projects that both facilitated and encouraged the city’s development and geographic expansion. The period immediately following the Civil War—the so-named “Gilded Age”—witnessed unprecedented wealth formation and the consolidation of an elite class with grand cultural aspirations who were overwhelmingly headquartered in New York. This era was also one of great civic strife. Economic, political, and racial animosities boiled over with increasing frequency on the streets of New York and other American cities. While scholars are not in agreement as to when the Gilded Age ended, the term is useful here as a descriptive of the lavish homes constructed by the elite class to rival their titled European counterparts, as well as the museums, libraries, hospitals, and other institutions founded thanks to their largesse. The aesthetic eclecticism that characterized the late 1870s and 1880s became increasingly chastened starting in the mid-1880s, evolving into stricter interpretations of historicism particularly in the residential, cultural, and institutional projects of the late 19th century and the early 20th.
Pre–Civil War
Scholarship on this period has largely focused on ambitious civic initiatives such as the Commissioner’s Plan of 1811, which divided the island of Manhattan’s real estate into the ubiquitous block-lot format; the Croton Waterworks, which channeled essential fresh water to the island from upstate; or, later in the 19th century, the development of much-needed public green space with the planning, design, and construction of Central Park. Both Ballon 2012 and Spann 1998 explore the significance of the 1811 Commissioner’s Plan. Koppel 2000 illuminates the need for fresh water, finally fulfilled with the Croton system in the 1840s, in accommodating New York’s future development. Rosenzweig and Blackmar 1992 documents the social history of Central Park, while Miller 2002 provides an in-depth treatment of the park’s architecture, sculpture, and landscape. Several texts address the city’s architecture in the antebellum era. Upton 2000 is a broad overview that weaves architecture and infrastructure into the story of New York’s status as the Empire City. Heckscher 2000 looks more directly at the work of architects and builders of this period, while tracing the evolving professionalization of the field.
Ballon, Hillary, ed. The Greatest Grid: The Master Plan of Manhattan, 1811–2011. New York: Columbia University Press, 2012.
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Published in conjunction with the Museum of the City of New York’s exhibition of the same name, on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the Commissioner’s Plan. This volume documents the 1811 Plan, and contextualizes its execution, implementation, and the grid’s enduring legacy. Contains photographs, illustrations, and a fold-out reproduction of the 1811 Plan.
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Heckscher, Morrison H. “Building the Empire City: Architects and Architecture.” In Art and the Empire City: New York, 1825–1861. Edited by Catherine Hoover Voorsanger and John K. Howat, 169–187. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000.
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Examines the work of prominent architects and builders who practiced in the city in this period. Also documents the stylistic shifts of the antebellum era’s historical revivals alongside the professionalization of architectural practice. Exh. cat.
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Koppel, Gerard T. Water for Gotham: A History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000.
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Exploration of the early history of New York’s water supply from the Dutch settlement to the Croton Aqueduct in the 1840s. Situates the Aqueduct’s supply of clean water as necessary not only to sanitation and public health, but also to the city’s subsequent development and population boom.
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Miller, Sara Cedar. Central Park, an American Masterpiece: A Comprehensive History of the Nation’s First Urban Park. New York: Abrams, 2002.
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Accessible illustrated history of the Park that explores elements of the landscape, architecture, and sculpture in-depth.
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Rosenzweig, Roy, and Elizabeth Blackmar. The Park and the People: A History of Central Park. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992.
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A thoroughly researched social history of Central Park that explores its initial conception, planning, design, and reception as well as continued debates over access and use of New York’s great public space. Addresses the Park’s more recent history of neglect and decline through the 1970s, to revitalization efforts starting in the 1980s.
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Spann, Edward K. “The Greatest Grid: The New York Plan of 1811.” In Two Centuries of American Planning. Edited by Daniel Schaffer, 11–39. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.
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A classic study that contrasts the Commissioner’s rigid block/lot plan to European urban planning strategies (such as Pierre-Charles L’Enfant’s radial plan for Washington, DC), documents contemporary reception, and charts the implications of the Plan on New York’s subsequent development.
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Upton, Dell. “Inventing the Metropolis: Civilization and Urbanity in Antebellum New York.” In Art and the Empire City: New York, 1825–1861. Edited by Catherine Hoover Voorsanger and John K. Howat, 3–45. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000.
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Considers Manhattan’s status as “Empire City” through the interwoven developments of infrastructural improvement, architecture, and the cultural aspirations of middle- and upper-class New Yorkers in the antebellum era. Exh. cat.
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Post–Civil War: The Gilded Age
Scholarship on this period has largely focused on the lavish residences erected by New York’s elite, most of which are no longer extant, as well as the first generation of professionally trained architects who gave form to their clients’ domestic and institutional ambitions in the years after the Civil War. Craven 2009 looks at mansion building in New York and Newport with case studies of notable examples. Cathrens 2005–2013 provides documentary and social history of domestic structures dating from 1880 to 1940. Broderick 2010 highlights the social and professional connections of McKim, Mead and White, one of the most prolific firms of this era, while Wilson 1983 and Roth 1983 are both considered classic studies of the firm’s work and significance in the period. Baker 1980 focuses on the life and work of the prominent architect Richard Morris Hunt. Heckscher 2020 tracks the evolution of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s architectural form up to the present, with an emphasis on the Museum’s original design and the subsequent expansion schemes both by Hunt and by McKim, Mead and White. In foregrounding the tenement as a building type, Violette 2019 is a valuable counterpoint to the focus on elite housing. Scobey 2002 is an important work that contextualizes the interwoven economic and cultural mechanisms of New York’s development in the period.
Baker, Paul R. Richard Morris Hunt. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1980.
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A thorough monograph documenting Hunt’s architectural projects as well as his role in championing the professionalization of the profession in the United States.
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Broderick, Mosette G. Triumvirate: McKim, Mead & White; Art, Architecture, Scandal, and Class in America’s Gilded Age. New York: Random House, 2010.
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Accessible social history of the firm, their projects, and clients. Situates them within broader currents of professionalization and industrialization in the Gilded Age.
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Cathrens, Michael C. Great Houses of New York. 2 vols. New York: Acanthus Press, 2005–2013.
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Focuses on domestic architecture of New York’s elite, from 1880 to 1940. Vol. 1 includes forty-three notable houses with abundant archival photographs and documentation. Vol. 2 features thirty-seven additional structures.
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Craven, Wayne. Gilded Mansions: Grand Architecture and High Society. New York: W. W. Norton, 2009.
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Explores the built projects of high society in New York and Newport, Rhode Island, with a particular emphasis on the evolution of Fifth Avenue into a millionaire’s row. Looks at the many ways Gilded Age mansions in both urban and rural settings departed from earlier elite housing.
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Heckscher, Morrison H. “An Edifice for Art.” In Making the Met: 1870–2020. Edited by Andrea Bayer and Laure D. Corey, 18–31. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2020.
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A concise but thorough overview of the Metropolitan Museum’s architectural evolution. The bibliography includes excellent references to the firm McKim, Mead and White (see Broderick 2010 and Wilson 1983). Exh. cat.
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Roth, Leland. McKim, Mead & White: Architects. New York: Harper & Row, 1983.
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A comprehensive exploration of the individual partners, their prolific output, and the impact of the firm on American architecture of the period. Includes a thorough bibliography.
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Scobey, David. Empire City: The Making and Meaning of the New York City Landscape. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002.
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Investigates Manhattan’s explosive growth in the third quarter of the 19th century through the lens of the real estate market. Argues for a re-situation of New York’s transformation through an understanding of the unique context of New York real estate market. Includes a helpful statistical appendix that charts construction and land values during the period.
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Violette, Zachary J. The Decorated Tenement: How Immigrant Architects and Builders Transformed the Slum in the Gilded Age. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2019.
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A study focused on the tenements of Boston’s West End and New York’s Lower East Side. Shifts focus from housing reformers to architects, builders, and the working-class tenants who occupied these spaces.
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Wilson, Richard Guy. McKim, Mead & White, Architects. New York: Rizzoli, 1983.
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A foundational study of the notable firm. Analyzes a selection of their projects in the Northeast. Contextualizes the firm’s work within larger cultural and aesthetic ideals.
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Architecture of the Twentieth Century
This section covers the literature on New York’s 20th-century architecture in two categories. The first spans the early 1900s to the outbreak of World War II, and includes some of the significant tall buildings of the period, as well as the initiative to rein in height and density, and the subsequent impact of zoning legislation on architectural form. The second section starts in the immediate postwar period, and ends with the turn of the century. This nearly fifty-year span witnessed a dramatic transformation in the form and structure of New York’s architecture with the ascendancy of International Style Modernism, and in renewed efforts to regulate space through a pivotal revision of the zoning legislation in 1961.
1913–1941
Fenske 2008 is a thorough case study of the Woolworth Building, completed in 1913. The Woolworth’s massing was prescient, in that it anticipated the block/tower format that would soon be enshrined in the country’s first zoning legislation. Revell 1992 analyzes the impetus for, and impact of, the 1916 zoning, the first such regulation in the United States. The setbacks that were required after 1916 aligned with the formal qualities of the Art Deco style. Robinson and Bletter 1975 situates these skyscrapers, and the Art Deco style, in a broader European context. Rather than the stylistic features which were the focus of earlier analyses of New York and Chicago skyscrapers, Willis 1995 looks at the practical constraints that shaped Class A office buildings in both cities. Krinsky 2005 is a comprehensive treatment of the commission and design of another landmark of the period, the Rockefeller Center complex, while Cotter 2009 surveys the 1939–1940 New York World’s Fair.
Cotter, Bill. The 1939–1940 New York World’s Fair. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2009.
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An accessible survey of the 1939–1940 Fair. Particularly valuable for the reproduction of period photographs of the Fair’s architecture, sculptural program, and displays.
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Fenske, Gail. The Skyscraper and the City: The Woolworth Building and the Making of Modern New York. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2008.
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An exploration of the iconic landmark, and the ways it was interpreted and understood in the era, including an in-depth analysis of the building’s marketing and promotion. Situates the Woolworth Building in the broader context of corporate headquarters, speculative office space, the technological advancements of the era, and the search for a style appropriate to very tall buildings.
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Krinsky, Carol Herselle. “The Skyscraper in Its Urban Context: Rockefeller Center.” In The American Skyscraper: Cultural Histories. Edited by Roberta Moudry, 201–216. Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
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A concise history of the Rockefeller Center commission and design. Explores how the project evolved, as its program shifted from a cultural center to a commercial one.
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Revell, Keith D. “Regulating the Landscape: Real Estate Values, City Planning, and the 1916 Zoning Ordinance.” In The Landscape of Modernity: New York City, 1900–1940. Edited by David Ward and Oliver Zunz, 19–45. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1992.
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A succinct analysis of the 1916 zoning legislation. Outlines the impetus for the new regulations; the details of use, height, and area limitations imposed by the law; and the impact these constraints would have on subsequent planning.
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Robinson, Calvin, and Rosemarie Haag Bletter. Skyscraper Style: Art Deco New York. New York: Oxford University Press, 1975.
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A classic study of the European origins of Art Deco, and the style’s impact on New York skyscrapers.
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Willis, Carol. Form Follows Finance: Skyscrapers and Skylines in New York and Chicago. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Architectural Press, 1995.
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A foundational analysis that foregrounds both economic and local regulatory conditions in shaping the structural design and layout of tall office buildings in both cities.
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Post–World War II
As with the previous era, scholarship on the architecture and urbanism of New York’s postwar period evinces a range of approaches, from monographs focusing on individual buildings and designers, to contextual studies that situate the city’s architecture within broader cultural and economic developments. Adams 2019 exemplifies the former, in looking closely at architect Gordon Bunshaft’s work for Skidmore Owings and Merrill, and the firm’s role in codifying the design of Modernist corporate headquarters in New York. Lambert 2013 thoroughly explores another icon of Corporate Modernism, the Seagram Building, providing an insider’s view based on the author’s involvement with the project. Both Lever House and the Seagram Building were instrumental in emblematizing a potential new model for corporate headquarters with the tower/plaza organization, and that model became essentially codified with the 1961 revisions to the zoning legislation. Scully 1963 is an early and prescient critique of the tower/plaza format’s impact on the streetscape, while Kayden, et al. 2000 focuses on the creation of privately owned public space as a practical but significant aspect of the legislation, and also provides a thorough survey of examples. Beyond individual buildings, the postwar era saw a number of sweeping, large-scale redevelopment projects, many overseen by Robert Moses, whose impact and legacy are central to any consideration of this period. Caro 1974 remains the definitive biography of Moses’ life and work, while Ballon and Jackson 2008 provides a thorough reckoning of New York’s evolution under Moses’ storied tenure. Similarly, Zipp 2010 takes critical appraisal of large-scale urban renewal, using several key projects as case studies. Samuel 2007 documents one such project, the 1964–1965 New York World’s Fair. The nascent historic preservation movement and the ensuing Landmark Law were important outgrowths of such sweeping change in the postwar era. Jacobs 1961 is a classic analysis and critique of urban renewal of the midcentury. Kaplan 2019 traces the history of Pennsylvania Station, the demolition of which crystallized the preservation movement, while Wood 2008 looks specifically at the legislation’s impact and shortcomings. Lindgren 2014 connects the South Street Seaport complex redevelopment plans to the larger product of revitalizing Lower Manhattan. Gissen 2014 similarly situates several key projects in a broader socioeconomic context. This text considers the large-scale interior atria of the late 1970s and 1980s as a compensatory response to the city’s near-economic collapse.
Adams, Nicholas. Gordon Bunshaft and SOM: Building Corporate Modernism. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2019.
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Monographic treatment of Bunshaft’s life and the designer’s work at Skidmore Owings and Merrill. Thoroughly treats important New York projects such as Lever House and Manufacturers Trust Company.
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Ballon, Hilary, and Kenneth Jackson, eds. Robert Moses and the Modern City: The Transformation of New York. New York: W. W. Norton, 2008.
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A critical analysis of Moses and his impact on the region. Includes a helpful catalog, organized by category, of Moses’ projects from 1934 to 1968.
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Caro, Robert A. The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974.
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The definitive biography of Moses. Documents the mechanisms by which Moses achieved sweeping authority, and critically assesses his legacy, and his impact on the built environment of New York City.
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Gissen, David. Manhattan Atmospheres: Architecture, the Interior Environment, and Urban Crisis. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014.
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Considers the interiorized environments of megastructures in the 1960s–80s against the backdrop of the city’s economic near-collapse.
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Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Random House, 1961.
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Highly influential critique of urban planning and urban renewal policies of the mid-20th century.
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Kaplan, Paul M. New York’s Original Penn Station: The Rise and Tragic Fall of an American Landmark. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2019.
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An accessible history of the now-demolished landmark. Traces the building’s evolution from engineering and aesthetic marvel to costly behemoth, and reckons with the role its destruction played in crystallizing the preservation movement in New York.
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Kayden, Jerold, the New York City Department of City Planning, and the Municipal Arts Society. Privately Owned Public Space: The New York City Experience. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley, 2000.
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Explores the impact of the 1961 zoning legislation. Both historical overview and survey of examples, organized geographically. Covers Manhattan exhaustively, as well as Brooklyn and Queens.
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Lambert, Phyllis. Building Seagram. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013.
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Comprehensive history of the Mies van der Rohe–designed headquarters. Appendices include Lambert’s correspondence with her father, head of the Seagram Company; list of Plaza installations and gallery exhibitions; and the building’s conservation issues.
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Lindgren, Michael James. Preserving South Street Seaport: The Dream and Reality of a New York Urban Renewal District. New York: NYU Press, 2014.
DOI: 10.18574/nyu/9781479822577.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
More than a case study of the Seaport, this text situates the Seaport and Museum within broader revitalization of Lower Manhattan, and the debates over historic preservation, cultural institutions, and commercialism in the city.
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Samuel, Lawrence R. The End of Innocence: The 1964–1965 New York World’s Fair. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2007.
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While not specifically focused on architecture, this text is helpful in situating the 1964–1965 Fair in the context of broader reclamation and improvement projects of the Robert Moses era. The extensive photographic illustrations are helpful in reconstructing the now-lost pavilions, and other built features of the Fair.
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Scully, Vincent. “The Death of the Street.” Perspecta: The Yale Architectural Journal 8 (1963): 91–96.
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A concise, classic text. Critically analyzes the impact of the plaza/tower layout epitomized by the Seagram Building and Lever House on the streetscape of Park Avenue.
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Wood, Anthony C. Preserving New York: Winning the Rights to Protect a City’s Landmarks. New York: Routledge, 2008.
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Critical appraisal of the impact of the Landmarks Law in New York through case studies of significant episodes in New York City preservation such as Pennsylvania Station. Looks at strengths and shortcomings of the Landmarks Law.
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Zipp, Samuel. Manhattan Projects: The Rise and Fall of Urban Renewal in Cold War New York. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
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Utilizes the United Nations, Stuyvesant Town, Lincoln Square, and East Harlem as case studies of urban renewal in the postwar era. Analyzes the aims and aspirations of urban renewal boosters, alongside the reception and commentary surrounding these projects.
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Architecture of the Twenty-First Century
Accounting for the architecture and urban development of 21st-century New York City is necessarily a work in progress. The tragic September 11th (2001) terrorist attacks ushered in the 2000s, and indelibly marked the city and its inhabitants. Goldberger 2005 thoughtfully explores the fraught process by which a memorial, museum, and a number of new towers came to fruition on and adjacent to the former World Trade Center site. The post–September 11th years also corresponded with the mayoralty of Michael Bloomberg, whose administrative policies and initiatives impacted the city’s architecture and urbanism in profound ways. In Brash 2011, the Hudson Yards project exemplifies Bloomberg’s push to rebrand the city, post-9/11, as a luxury destination. Lindner and Rosa 2017 likewise looks to West Side development and gentrification, exploring the High Line as both a successful urban green space, and a magnet for luxury development. Indeed, a remarkable facet of the city’s continued development in recent years has been the spate of new luxury residential structures designed by world-famous architects, many who are Pritzker Prize winners. A thorough accounting of this phenomenon has yet to be written, although Hill 2011 is a useful guide to some notable structures, most of which were built between 2001 and the economic collapse of 2008. Certainly, the most visible of these luxury towers are the “supertalls,” predominantly concentrated along the southern border of Central Park. The permanent exhibition of the Skyscraper Museum is, so far, the only thorough accounting of this still-evolving phenomena.
Brash, Julian. Bloomberg’s New York: Class and Governance in the Luxury City. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2011.
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A sociological exploration of the Bloomberg Administration’s planning initiatives. Uses the redevelopment of Hudson Yards as a luxury destination on the far West Side as a lens through which to view broader efforts at rebranding the city.
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Goldberger, Paul. Up from Zero: Politics, Architecture, and the Rebuilding of New York. New York: Random House, 2005.
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An in-depth recounting of the former World Trade Center site’s redevelopment. Explores the many competing constituencies that had a stake in the redesign.
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Hill, John. Guide to Contemporary New York City Architecture. New York: W. W. Norton, 2011.
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Accessible guide to more than 200 significant projects in the five boroughs since 2001. Includes photographs and brief history of each project. Organized geographically.
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Lindner, Christopher, and Brian Rosa, eds. Deconstructing the High Line: Postindustrial Urbanism and the Rise of the Elevated Park. Rutgers, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2017.
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Recounts the High Line’s redevelopment and its success as an urban greenway. Includes critical appraisal of how the project spurred luxury developments, and contributed to gentrification on the West Side of Manhattan.
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The Skyscraper Museum, Supertall Exhibition.
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Documents and analyzes “supertall” structures. Covers this building type globally, with a special emphasis on New York City.
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