Customer Reviews

New York's Unique and Unexpected Places

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As a New York fanatic, I collect books about the city and was really happy to discover "New York's Unique & Unexpected Places." This book has sent me on a serendipitous journey, from Poets House downtown in Battery Park to Louis Armstrong's house in Queens. I even took the ferryboat across the river to the Chinese Scholar's Garden in Staten Island to see if it was as spectacular as described. It was.

The book is great: the writing is lyrical, the photographs are superb, the design is bold. So where will it take me next? I've bookmarked the NYC Transit Museum in Brooklyn, which should intrigue a young nephew visiting here on the weekend. My list includes the Hispanic Society of America, where I'll bring a friend who loves Goya's paintings, and then I'll go to Economy Candy as a reward for being a tour guide. I'm saving the Hua Mei Bird Garden for warmer weather.

With a large collection of New York City guide books, I am pretty well read in this area. I like to keep myself current on both popular tourist sites and obscure stuff since I act as a tour guide myself when I have guests from out-of-town. There seem to be a run on new books the feature 'unusual' places in New York. "New York's Unique and Unexpected Places" is the third guide I've see published in the past year, following "Off the Beaten Subway Track" and "Secret New York", each which also sit on my bookshelf. Unfortunately, this title covers no new ground.

Starting with its strengths, the photos are crisp and nicely capture the spirit of some of these lesser known sites. The photos are the star of the show, but the writing is only acceptable and it lacks personality. This title would have been better as a coffee table book of photo essays, rather than a hard cover guide book. In terms of value for your money, "Off the Beaten Subway Track" is a soft-cover book that cost me half as much money, covered all of the same sites with dozens that are not in this book, and featured a more engaging narrative structure.

If you are looking for interesting places to visit in New York, this book provides a sample of the oddity that New York contains. However, it is not alone in a growing niche. Since I tend to be a bit of an outlier when it comes to NYC books (I literally have dozens), I suspect most people only need one book regarding this narrow subject. Explore the alternatives, since this book falls short.

Full disclosure, I am a friend of the the author and her family. Having said this, this was a great book to read, especially since I lived in downtown manhattan for almost 13 years, but the past 10 I have lived and worked in Los Angeles. I thought that I was a well versed new yorker who had seen most of what had to be seen in the years I had been here. I was wrong. This book makes you want to fall in love with the city all over again and will reawaken your sense of discovery about New York and all of its special places. Go ahead, be a tourist, get the book, read it and go discover these places for yourself.

Purchased for my daughter, as a gift for a friend, an evening's reading brought to the fore the necessity of purchasing another copy for myself before my next trip to NYC!

What a marvelous treat "New York's Unique and Unexpected Places" was to read! Judith Stonehill has done all the legwork for our next trip to the Big Apple - we just have to decide which places to visit first. The write-ups are such fun to read, even if you weren't planning a trip to the "City". The beautiful photos by Alexandra Stonehill enhance the author's descriptions.

Best of all, this book is out in time for Christmas gifts - each of our children will be receiving one.

NYC here we come - eager and ready to take in these "special finds".

A terrific guide as well as a great read. This book takes you to many places in New York that I never knew existed. Not only am I happy to have one myself, I will be buying more as gifts for my native New Yorker friends. Most that I polled had been to less than half of the places featured, and there were several that none even knew about. A must for every New Yorker and lovers of New York.

As a long-time New Yorker, I was amazed by some of the destinations in this wonderful guidebook. Not only had I not been to a number of the places, I had never even heard of several! The book offers a nice balance between cultural institutions, one-of-a-kind shops and parks, as well as a few pits stops for some very New York treats. I definitely recommend this book to all, and especially native New Yorkers who would like a reminder that New York still is an extraordinarily diverse city with hidden treasures waiting to be discovered....

This book will inspire you to discover places you didn't know existed in New York.

Beautifully written, photographed and designed, a book you are always going to
treasure.

What a great book to buy as a gift for friends/clients who live in NYC and those
who will be visiting or dream of visiting. I just placed another order.

Judith Stonehill and Alexandra Stonehill are true New Yorkers. They know New York IS the center of the universe with anything beyond New Jersey being "the great West". I am a Chicagoan so my fondest memory of New York was seeing "Cabaret" in 1967. Future business trips never gave me time to "see" the city.
After looking through the book and looking at Alexandra's beautiful and thoughtful pictures I have to admit that I want to go back.
I would think that if I LIVED in New York, I would be only too happy to part with sixteen dollars and learn something about my home town.