The Subway and the City: Celebrating a Century [Hardcover]

Stan Fischler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 2004

An audacious and all-encompassing book about New York's underground, The Subway and the City has everything a fan of the city and its trains could want.

568 Pages with more than 400 photographs, including over 375 vintage photographs never before seen in print!

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

For the past half century, Stan Fischler has covered the Ney York subway scene more intensively than any Big Apple journalist-in print and on radio and television. He began his career as subway editor of the New York Journal-American in 1955 and remained on the transit beat for a decade.

In addition to his writings on subways, Fischler has also been active on the television side. He wrote and helped produce ten features on New York's system called, "Subway Series," which won prizes for writing and production.

Apart from his work in the transportation area, Fischler is renowned in local and national sports circles as "The Hockey Maven," and is recognized as one of the most outspoken authorities on the game of hockey.

Fischler's first job out of Brooklyn College was as Rangers' publicist during the 1954-55 season. It was the first of many hockey-related positions for Fischler, who has since covered hockey either in print or on the air for more than 45 years.

Fischler, who resides in Manhattan with his wife Shirley, holds a master's degree in Education from Long Island University and has taught news and feature writing at Queens College, Columbia University and Fordham University.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 533 pages
• Publisher: Frank Merriwell Inc. (July 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0837395518
• ISBN-13: 978-0837395517
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,936,244 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Exciting Ride Through NYC's Subway History, August 17, 2004

By 

Julian Maxx (New York, NY, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Subway and the City: Celebrating a Century (Hardcover)

Whether you love or hate the subway, you'll love "The Subway and the City" by Stan Fischler. This is a great read -- and adventurous ride -- focusing on the growth of the New York subway system over the past 100 years -- and how the subway helped make New York become one of the greatest ethnically diverse urban communities in the world. Full of historic and vintage photos chronicling the building of the subway. Once you open its pages, you won't be able to close this handsome hard cover book until you've reached the last stop on Page 568!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The personal touch to a centennial review, June 27, 2008

By 

Kim Seale (Richardson, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Subway and the City: Celebrating a Century (Hardcover)

This book was published as part of the official centennial of the New York Subway system back in 2004, but it differs from the traditional history book approach. Instead of a dry and linear recitation of facts and figures from 1904 to 2004, Fischler weaves in his own lifetime of memories of riding the rails from borough to borough. His personal recollections range from watching the construction of a subway station literally under his own house as a six-year old during the extension of one of the lines, making family pilgrimages to relatives' houses, Broadway plays and various sporting events, all the way to taking his own children to the Subway Museum in Brooklyn as they grew up.

The book is filled with many old photographs of stations, elevated lines and all of the versions of rolling stock that have been a part of the first one hundred years. Although the book seems to jump around from topic to topic and is sometimes hard to follow, the personal anecdote-style gives it a warmth not matched in many historical reviews. If you have a love for the New York Subway system, you are sure to enjoy this book from a native New Yorker and lifetime straphanger.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A historical gem!, October 16, 2004

By 

Ben WF "Ben" (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Subway and the City: Celebrating a Century (Hardcover)

This is an incredibly deep adventure into every corner of the greatest subway system in the world, told by someone who knows it better then anyone. A great read and a great historical document.