Empire city : the making and meaning of the New York City landscape / David M. Scobey.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Scobey, David M., 1954-

Series:

Critical perspectives on the past

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

National Book Committee.

City planning--New York (State)--New York.

City planning.

History.

New York (State)--New York.

New York (N.Y.)--History--19th century.

New York (N.Y.).

Physical Description:

xi, 340 pages : illustrations, maps ; 26 cm.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : Temple University Press, 2002.

Summary:

New York's metamorphosis from compact part to modern metropolis occurred during the mid-nineteenth century. "Empire City tells the story of the dreams that inspired the changes in the landscape and the problems that eluded solution. Author David Scobey paints a remarkable panorama of New York's uneven development, a city-building and speculative excess. Envisioning a new kind of national civilization, "bourgeois urbanists' attempted to make New York the nation's pre-eminent city. Ultimately, they created a masaic of grand improvements, dynamic change, and environmental disorder. "Empire City sets the stories of the city's most celebrated landmarks--Central Park, the Brooklyn Bridge, the downtown commercial center--within the context of this new ideas of landscape design and a politics of planned city building. Perhaps such an ambitious project for guiding growth, overcoming spatial problems, and uplifting public was bound to fail; still, it grips the imagination.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [275]-330) and index.

ISBN:

1566399505

OCLC:

48222693