Customer Reviews

New York Calling: From Blackout to Bloomberg

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At its frequent best, "New York Calling" has the scope of an encylopedia and the sweep of a novel. While Marshall Berman kicks things off in trademark mensch of the people style, it's the wide range of attentions given to street life of nearly every kind that makes this book special. Well-known contributors like Luc Sante, Tom Robbins, John Strausbaugh and Jim Knipfel are all predictably terrific but it's the boroughs that are brought most vividly, and uniquely, to the fore. Steve Maluk's Staten Island piece is a celebration and subtle 9/11 memorial all-in-one, CJ Sullivan's Boogie Down essay picks up where Jonathan Mahler left off in "Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bronx Is Burning" and Jean Thilmany's account of old folks at home in Italian Williamsburg (she lived next door to Manhattan Special) was wonderfully drawn.

As for New York's most populous (and popular?) borough, Brian Berger's "Who Walk In Brooklyn" might be the first piece on modern BK that gets ALL of it, or as much as could fit in seventeen action-packed pages. From Albemarle to Avenue Z, from the criminal to the sublime, with slavery, shanty towns, brutal labor strikes, mafia wars, sand dunes, salt marshes and the rush of food, music, noise, excitement and anger that every true Brooklynite recognizes as their own. Less ecstatic but equally important are the African-American voices of Armond White and Leonard Greene, each of whom cast a colder eye on the realities of race in what is, after all, also city's blackest borough.

Lastly, although I didn't notice until a particularly grueling airport layover, Berger also wrote three panoramic section introductions and, at the end of the book, an eccentric 1964-2007 Chronology that's really quite thrilling. (If you see the book in a store, start here.) Others have noted the terrific photography but also hiding near the back is five page photo key with hundreds of detailed, often witty CAPTIONS, placing nearly every location down to the exact block. Imagine my surprise when I realized that whoa! Here were photos of Bay Ridge, where I now live; Midwood, where I went to high school; the Gowanus Canal, where my father worked and East New York, where my grandparents lived. I gave a copy of this as a gift my 85-year-old Aunt Nana in Florida. Nana grew up in the Bronx, lived in all the boroughs but Staten and she LOVED IT, graffiti, drugs, gentrification, the wacky art world, hip-hop, jazz, Rockaway Beach, Astoria, the Lower East Side-- nothing fazed her, although she wishes she hadn't sold her house in Park Slope 30 years ago for... oh, my she can't even say it!

But I will: at last a book BY New Yorkers FOR New Yorkers, or anyone who wants to know why the natives are sometimes restless. A jillion thumbs up, two slices to go please, and if I could pay with old Show World or subway tokens, I'd treat all the writers to a night out at Randazzo's... or at least Roll N Roaster, hah.

I bought this book after attending a reading in Williamsburg (Brooklyn) given by one of the co-editors & two of the book's writers (Luc Sante who wrote the outstanding essay "Commerce" & Tim McLouglin who wrote the essay on New York crime.) I've just finished the book and the main thing that became clear to me is, in line with recent trends in New York City as a whole, this might be the best Brooklyn book I've ever read. Brian Berger's essay "Who Walk In Brooklyn" is the standout (it begins with two epigraphs, one by my favorite writer Gilbert Sorrentino and the other by Ol' Dirty [...]) but pieces on civil rights, crime, small daily life and black cultural empowerment all take place largely in that borough. Fans of Brooklyn writer Jonathan Lethem won't be disappointed but most likely WILL be surprised at learning there's a lot more there to talk about. I was also extremely pleased to see the detailed and plugged-in attention the Bronx received, not just the usual cliches about fires, baseball & the birth of hip-hop. If there is a weak spot in the book, it's that although Berger and others go some way towards detailing the fullness of Latino cultures in the city, a little more salsa and a little less punk would have been nice. But at least after reading this, you'll know which Mexican joint in East Harlem makes the best pozole, that the little lunch counter by Lefferts Boulevard in Queens is Ecuadoran and that Puerto Ricans built Brooklyn too. The same goes for African-Americans, West Indians & Africans, Lebanese, Syrian & Greek & so forth: if Manhattan is becoming whiter, more expensive & less interesting, this book celebrates the abundance of new cultures as much as it reminiscently mourns the old ones.

Mandatory reading on New York history. That sounds boring, doesn't it. Rephrase: learn about the blackout, the Bronx, graffiti artists, the drug trade, the sex scene, jazz, rock and punk, senegalese food, stuff you'd never think of or know was in the same boro as you. You should probably do it soon, as according to John Strausbaugh in an essay on gentrification, the mall-ification of SoHo, the "cleanup" of Times Square, "the island is rapidly being leeched of much of its character."

I wouldn't describe this book as particularly cheery or as having a positive outlook on the future of the city, (it certainly wasn't written by the Travel and Tourism Board), but I think anyone not living in New York who is considering a move here should read this, primarily so you have some idea about recent New York history, and secondly so you're aware before you give notice at your hometown job (the one where your salary and your cost of living would recognize each other if they passed on the street) that today's city ain't the same New York of the 70s 80s 90s written about here, the one built by Hilly Kristal, Allen Ginsberg, James Brown, Warhol, Klaus Nomi, Hubert Selby, Ol' Dirty Bastard, but rather a watered-down (whited-down?) variant.

I liked that with 29 essays contributing to under 400 pages, nothing ran too long where I felt myself getting bored with one topic before coming to the next one. Also, hundreds of candid photos show everyday life in seemingly countless neighborhoods.

NEW YORK CALLING by Marshall Berman has to be the most meticulously written work on ALL New York City in a long time. Covering the late 1970s (who could forget the Blackout of '77 ?) until this very day under the Bloomberg administration, Berman excellently and in an impeccable fashion, covers all the changes the city has undergone for the past 30+ years: gentrification, demographics, the changing neighborhoods--pretty much a before and after format, in adition to stories that made headlines, Broadway shows, Hollywood's movies filmed on our great streets and a little hodge-podge of historical notes here and there. If you are a TRUE Native New Yorker, born and raised, like I am, or simply wish to get to know "The Greatest City in the World" on a very personal level, this is the book for you!! Highly recommended! P.S. Numb-skulled out-of-towners need not apply!

I didn't enjoy this book as much as I was hoping. I think it's a little too "inside joke/story". Definitely geared towards actual New York city folk - which is cool - except I live in Seattle- har har!!