Customer Reviews

The Works: Anatomy of a City

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Imagine:
*an illustration of the special machinery used just to clean the ceiling of the Holland Tunnel.
*a sidebar on the "Poo-Poo Choo-Choo" that for years transported waste 2,000 miles (!) from NYC to a dump in Texas.
*a graphic showing payphone distribution density in all 5 boroughs.
*a drawing of the simple but effective interlocking bolts and cross-tie latching that keep the corrugated metal containers on barges connected to each other so upper containers don't slide off lower ones and fall into the water.
*a key to reading construction markings that crews spray paint on the streets.

Such drawings, historical tidbits, and facts are more abundant in this book than leaves in Central Park.

This book is exceptional. As the former Vice-chair of Manhattan Community Board 5 (greater midtown Manhattan), chair of its parks committee, and member of its land use and zoning committee, I can attest to the great value of Kate Ascher's remarkable accomplishment, "The Works." New York City's infrastructure--from garbage collection to traffic control; subway signaling to cable TV distribution among franchise-controlled territories--is one of the world's most multifaceted, and at times a curious mix of the high-tech and the antiquated.

Reviews suggesting that the text is for teenagers may be accidentally misleading. "The Works" by no means is for teenagers either *primarily* or *at the exclusion of* adults. Yes, the book--especially its more heavily-illustrated sections--will no doubt fire the imagination of many teens who have engineering, design, line drawing, architectural, historical analysis, or problem-solving aptitudes. (Have a teenager who loved Legos as a kid but has outgrown them? This book will probably make a good gift.) Just because the book is broad in scope and doesn't examine each urban work it covers with the detail of a textbook for electrical engineering students at M.I.T. doesn't make it merely for adolescents.

If you enjoy TV shows on The Science Channel or Discovery, shows like "Building the Ultimate," if you are a history trivia buff, if you just like looking at diagrams or line drawings of machinery and equipment, of you're fascinated by cities, or if it is simply the cast that you love New York City, this is a great book, and I highly recommend it.

This book has not left the coffee table. Everyone who has come over picks it up and inevitably remarks, "Oh, so that's how it works! I always wondered how they timed the traffic lights" or some such comment. This is a book you can return to again and again--one day it's telecommunications, the next, sewage. It contains so many answers to questions you never knew you had.

After reading "The Works," I now walk around New York with a completely different awareness of the incredible infrastructure that quietly undergirds the city: I constantly notice the design of fire hydrants, street signs, and man holes; I know what a "sidewalk neckdown" is; I understand how my water gets to me from the Ashokan Reservoir in the Catskills through those crazy aqueducts (and they ARE crazy! they have a submersible submarine that perouses that thing for leaks!).

This book is a perfect gift for any man/boy/girl/hippo who likes to know how things work and likes to see them diagrammed in beautiful, scrumptious illustrations. I am one of these people.

But perhaps most importantly, this book made me forgive those terrible yellow trash trains that pull into subway stations late at night and immediately mean you will be waiting twenty more minutes for your train. I used to fear them. Now I know what they do. I forgive you, yellow trash trains.

I am a licensed professional civil engineer that worked for the Philadelphia Water Department for 10 years and I found this book to be an excellent piece of work. This book would be a great reference for anyone ranging from a high school student to an engineer/architech/planner. The book focuses on New York City so people from the northeast USA may find some of the topics hit close to home. However, the principles and diagrams in the book apply to most cities. One of the best book I've bought in a while!

As a designer in NYC I really appreciated the detailed and accurate illustrations. Very well done & I think the book has enough information to be able to come back to it multiple times and come away with something new. I would take issue with the idea that its for a child/teenager. Visually it can spark a lot of ideas that can become useful. Now that I think about it, it reminds me of when I was a kid reading and staring at the illustrations from the Richard Scary book series.

I worked in commercial power for several years and until I read this book I still didn't know how electricity got from the power plant to the outlet in my shop to power my drill. Or why water actually comes out of the tap when I turn on the sink faucet. It's these myriads of questions that we take for granted that this book answers. Imagine these questions in reference to a city - New York City - and you've got a fascinating book..

The book covers every phase of public works including transit, power, communications, and clean-up. While the focus is on massive public works it's not just a book about technology but it personalizes the people who do all these jobs such as the engineers who climb the antennas on the Empire State Building for maintenance. The graphics are excellent and are a real aid in understanding how the systems work. The writing is clear and concise and very readable. After reading the book I have a new respect for the people who keep this largely invisible infrastructure running. Good reading.

As a designer in the New York metropolitan area, I thoroughly appreciate the effort that must have gone into making this book, and in particular its illustrations. They are detailed, accurate (as far as I can tell), and above all informative in a way that infrastructure diagrams from other books are not. It is noted that TW:AOAC's lead designer found inspiration in a chance encounter with famed statistician/graphic artist Edward Tufte - a credible claim, if this book is any indicator. Conveying so much about the city yet basking in white space, these spreads are consistently excellent. Ascher's writing, too, is impeccable, and while a free-market standpoint is appropriately engaged in her commentary, the invaluabity of New York's public bureaus is not given short shrift. Indeed, where politics have clouded issues of development for the city, Ms. Ascher has deftly surmised the issue and given it full and fair treatment. As a major in economics and a professional graphic designer, I am happily forced to recommend this book.

This book is a rare treat - both enlightening and visually appealing. To borrow a term from Tufte, every page contains a "visual confection." The book explains the workings of all the significant support sytems that keep New York City humming. Even if you have a background in this kind of information, you will still find the book an excellent read and reference. There are plenty of intersting sidebars on how the systems have changed over time (the pneumatic mail system comes to mind.)

This book describes the infrastructure of New York City in a very structured and visually stimulating manner. It is well organized into sections on Transportation, Power, Communication, Sanitation, and Future Developments with more space devoted to illustrations than words. This book can be read cover-to-cover or left on the coffee table and perused leisurely for all of the interesting facts it contains. In either case, it defintely leaves the reader with a deep appreciation for the difficulty in running a large city.

I really enjoy owning this book. A couple times a week I go to this book to look up something that I've always wondered about New York City.

Recent questions this book has answered for me:
Why do some buildings have old water towers on top and not others? What is that clanging noise in my radiator? Does somebody personally read the name and address every time I send a first class letter or is there a machine that does it? Where does my market buy their food from? Does anybody manage harbor traffic to make sure all those tankers don't crash, or do they just obey the rules of the road and hope for the best? How do they clean the ceiling of tunnels from all the car exhaust and how often do they have to do it? How many "no parking" signs are there in NYC? Does the Stove or the microwave use more electricity? How many trees in central park?

If you are the kind of person who wonders about the mechanics of life this is a good book to have around.

Induldge your inner nerd and buy this book. The sections are well laid out with excellent and clear graphics and the sections are small enough that you (or your visitors) can either take one bite at a time or just browse through the thing till you find something that interests you (and you will). Describes detail in a way that's accessable to everyone and without getting tedious. My wait at the dentist's office would fly by with something like this to while away the time.