New York from the Air: An Architectural Heritage, Revised Edition [Hardcover]

Yann Arthus-Bertrand (Author), John Tauranac (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2003

The brightly lit spire of the Chrysler Building glows in the night, Wall Street and the World Financial Centre fill the southern tip of Manhattan Island with powerful geometric forms, a lone sunbather lies on a rock in the Central Park lake: seen from the air, New York is an exotic, uncluttered, beautiful place. Yann Arthus-Bertrand has created in this volume a lush, romantic tribute to the city of New York. This volume offers all the images from the original edition along with 18 new photographs chosen with sensitivity to the tragic destruction of the World Trade Centre. The images are accompanied by commentaries from John Tauranac.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"[T]he city's familiar buildings appear so cleanly bathed in golden light that you feel almost sorry for all of us who must view them from the ground."

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams; Revised edition (May 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810945770
• ISBN-13: 978-0810945777
• Product Dimensions: 14.8 x 10.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,359,655 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Yann Arthus-Bertrand, the world famous photographer, is renowned for his aerial photography. His bestseller include The Earth from the Air, which has sold over a million copies. He lives on France.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent aerial photographs of Manhattan buildings, January 9, 2004

By 

Ubik Sven (Czech Republic) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: New York from the Air: An Architectural Heritage, Revised Edition (Hardcover)

The book consists of excellent full-page photographs of
widely known Manhattan landmark buildings (other New York
boroughs are not included) taken from unusual perspective
not accessible by pedestrian. Someone complained in a previous
review that most pictures were taken during dawn and dusk.
I think that lighting was very carefully considered and
significantly contributes to the beauty of the photographs.
Description is relatively short, it is a photographic book,
not a city guide. The photographs are much more artistic than
in Robert Cameron's book "Above New York", which, in contrast,
includes also other New York boroughs and photographs cover
larger areas (not single buildings) and are taken during flat
mid-day light.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good Starting Book for New York, December 28, 2001

By 

Greg Markov (Phoenix, AZ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: New York from the Air: An Architectural Heritage (Abradale) (Hardcover)

I bought this book because of my adoration for the City of New York, and the beautiful picture on the front. Those looking for an in-depth history of NYC or more of a "hands-on" book, should look elsewhere. This book provides what the title suggests. It is a brief introduction to the vast world that is New York City. The photography is beautiful, although sometimes blurry at edges. There are small paragraphs explaining what you are looking at. Most of the main attractions are covered (Empire State Building, Central Park, Harlem, Greenwich Village, etc), as well as some others that I didn't know about, but had my eyes opened to. I will definitely be more prepared and educated as I go to NYC next time. The only complaint is that most of the coverage is of Manhattan, and it's attractions and not so much of the other parts of New York, as the book suggests. This was fine by me, as I was mostly interested in Manhattan anyway, but could mislead others. I would highly recommend this book if you like the city of New York, or are planning a trip there. This could be a great supplement as it gives you a different view of the city, one that you can't get just by being there. A view from the air.

21 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A disappointed New Yorker., November 20, 2001

By 

Anonymus49 (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: New York from the Air (Hardcover)

I would not recommend this book for anyone who hasn't lived in New York. I live here and I expected a lot more than I got. After 9/11 I wanted to get more photographic representations of New York City. What I got were inferior photographs and an uninteresting lesson in architecture. Captions to the photographs gave explanations about the design of the building which was of little value. For example the name of the developer, architect, and designer. When multiple buildings were in the picture, as was often the case, the description of each building was hard to follow. There should have been a small schematic with numbers to allow easier interpretation.

Most importantly however, the pictures were nowhere near as good as I would have hoped. Many pictures were taken at dusk and sunset hours and they came out dark. The shadows, especially of pictures in lower Manhattan are long and dilute the quality of the pictures. Many shots of the World Trade Center and their neighboring Battery Park City and WFC are pretty poor. There is an overhead shot of the WTC that is taken at dusk and the smaller buildings are invisible. No pictures were taken at night, when the city has a new life. There were no pictures of Times Square, only one picture where Madison Squeare Garden is partly in the background, no pictures of South Street Seaport (which would come out well if taking a picture of Manhattan from Brooklyn), and many of the pictures were of obscure buildings that most people don't look at.

As a native New Yorker I can appreciate seeing some of the unique buildings and architecture, but as far as a book for sights and photographs there is much to be desired. It almost seems that the photographer just took some pictures and put them together, almost haphazardly. The book was definitely not worth what I paid for it. They could have done so much more with the concept of aerial photos, but I was left disappointed.