Customer Reviews

New York for New Yorkers: A Historical Treasury and Guide to the Buildings and Monuments of Manhattan (Second Edition)

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4 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

As a first time visitor to New York City, I found this book was an invaluable guide to the major landmarks of New York City. It contains just the right amount of detail on each, so as to be a useful reference, but not too much so you still feel enticed to go and visit the various historic attractions and landmarks. Although the photographs are a little too small, there is still enough of an image to help aid the memory of a tourist (or local for that matter) My only regret was buying the book at the Metropolitan Museum shop, rather than through Amazon.Com!

Liza Greene's book is quite unique, and in many ways is one of the best books on the subject of New York's fabled architecture in the annals of the city. It is very obvious that this book was a labor of love and personal commitment on Ms. Greene's part. There is nothing cliched or by rote in this book. She has captured a number, a very large number of very fresh takes on the city "in situ." This book is so very New York in the fact that it is D.I.Y. She did not use twenty-five thousand dollars of expensive equipment, and lighting with a small horde of assistants and gofers. This book is the work of a single woman's very singular vision of what I think is the ultimate Metropolitan dream in the history of mankind. The labor of single-mindedness is reflected in pictures that are not dollied or craned or overly artificialized by city permits and special access. This is the work of an almost guerrilla sensibility. I only wish that PBS would give Ms. Green a full camera crew and 110 minutes to present her vision in context with her own voice-over so that more and more people would have access to her unique vision and singular passion. This book eloquently proves that the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Bravo, Ms. Greene, bravo indeed.

I purchased Liza Greene's book last Spring at my local bookstore and I have been very pleased with it. I have bought dozens of books and guides to New York City over the years. I am a married housewife with four daughters with a workaholic husband and my particular reward and gift from my family is that I get to go to New York City about four times per year for a little shopping, The Pierre, some nice dinners, the Met, Lincoln Center, and a few shows. I am originally from Dallas, Texas and I was just raised that way, and of course I realize that I am just an old dinosaur from a bye-gone time, but that was my generation. I have always thought and known that I was missing alot of New York City by being tethered to such a limited agenda. Last year I decided to broaden my horizons. Well, I couldn't be more pleased with Liza Greene's book, and I have used it as a blueprint, and a guide to some very exciting visual experiences that are just not to be found in any other guidebook. I just think that this book is a peach, an absolute peach. I am very glad that Liza Greene wrote it, and I am very pleased with its very nicely proprtioned size and portibility while it also gives a feeling of heft and substance. I don't think that the writer or the publisher could have done any better of a job of it. This is just a perfect little source and it has improved my feeling of grasping New York City a thousandfold. Thank you Ms. Greene for helping an old woman to get out of her rut.

This book is organized in such a way as to make its contents unusable for most readers. All of the buildings and landmarks are presented in chronological order, not by area, which is how guidebooks ought to be organized. Readers have to know when a certain structure was built in order to find it in the book. If the author had strutcured the content by neighborhood, which is how New York is organized, it would be useful and a pleasure to read. If I see a building that I want information on, how do I find it in this book? I don't.

This is one of the finest guides to New York City that it has been my pleasure to use and peruse. It is strong, unique, and essentially "nonpariel." There is really nothing on the market that has such natural down-home photography. In other words...none of the "faux-monumentalism" and deceptive proprtioning of space and matter which is the downfall of most guides. Ms. Greene accomplishes a Baedeker-style simplicity,with her perfectly concise and edited text. The size,format and substantiality of this book, as well as the ease in carrying it in a tote or rucksack make this guide a complete success. After the tragic events of September 11th, 2001...this book takes on an added poignancy, because so many of the treasured that Ms. Greene has unearthed, collated, collected, and memorialized are not directly connected with specifically "The Ground Zero" area of the Island of Manhattan...she helps to illuminate the complete diversity, universality, timelessness, and the raw raging dynamic power that shall forever be Manhattan"s legacy to the World, and future generations. This book is one of the strongest entries in its class since the Post-World War Two Era bagan. A thoughtful,encouraging,and Ms. Greene never puts herself above or between the wonders that she is illuminaring. She gets the information to you without the boredom of its conveyance. A remarkable job all the way around.

I purchased Liza Greene's book last Spring at my local bookstore and I have been very pleased with it. I have bought dozens of books and guides to New York City over the years. I am a married housewife with four daughters with a workaholic husband and my particular reward and gift from my family is that I get to go to New York City about four times per year for a little shopping, The Pierre, some nice dinners, the Met, Lincoln Center, and a few shows. I am originally from Dallas, Texas and I was just raised that way, and of course I realize that I am just an old dinosaur from a bye-gone time, but that was my generation. I have always thought and known that I was missing alot of New York City by being tethered to such a limited agenda. Last year I decided to broaden my horizons. Well, I couldn't be more pleased with Liza Greene's book, and I have used it as a blueprint, and a guide to some very exciting visual experiences that are just not to be found in any other guidebook. I just think that this book is a peach, an absolute peach. I am very glad that Liza Greene wrote it, and I am very pleased with its very nicely proprtioned size and portibility while it also gives a feeling of heft and substance. I don't think that the writer or the publisher could have done any better of a job of it. This is just a perfect little source and it has improved my feeling of grasping New York City a thousandfold. Thank you Ms. Greene for helping an old woman to get out of her rut.

I purchased Liza Greene's book last Spring at my local bookstore and I have been very pleased with it. I have bought dozens of books and guides to New York City over the years. I am a married housewife with four daughters with a workaholic husband and my particular reward and gift from my family is that I get to go to New York City about four times per year for a little shopping, The Pierre, some nice dinners, the Met, Lincoln Center, and a few shows. I am originally from Dallas, Texas and I was just raised that way, and of course I realize that I am just an old dinosaur from a bye-gone time, but that was my generation. I have always thought and known that I was missing alot of New York City by being tethered to such a limited agenda. Last year I decided to broaden my horizons. Well, I couldn't be more pleased with Liza Greene's book, and I have used it as a blueprint, and a guide to some very exciting visual experiences that are just not to be found in any other guidebook. I just think that this book is a peach, an absolute peach. I am very glad that Liza Greene wrote it, and I am very pleased with its very nicely proprtioned size and portibility while it also gives a feeling of heft and substance. I don't think that the writer or the publisher could have done any better of a job of it. This is just a perfect little source and it has improved my feeling of grasping New York City a thousandfold. Thank you Ms. Greene for helping an old woman to get out of her rut.