New York Underground: The Anatomy of a City (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "New Yorkers have long been fascinated by the underground..." (more)
Key Phrases: gate chamber, first cathedral, New York, Grand Central, Central Park (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Want to know whats amazing underneath New York City? Want to know about all the stuff that youd never guess is below Manhattan, including everything from secret subway stations to cave crickets? Then start digging into Julia Solis anatomical report on the Big Subterranean Apple, which is dark and deep and, despite eight million people living on top of it, largely unknown. - Robert Sullivan, Author of Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the Citys Most Unwanted Inhabitants

Both in her text and in the photos Solis shows us [New York's] mysteries, beauties, dangers, and desolations. -- Saskia Sassen, author of The Global City

Looks at a broad range of subjects from the perspective of explorer as much as historian...nicely written and engaging. -- Mike Wallace, co-author of Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898

Want to know what's amazing underneath New York City? Start digging into Solis' anatomical report on the Big Subterranean Apple. -- Robert Sullivan, Author of Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants

Want to know what's amazing underneath New York City? Want to know about all the stuff that you'd never guess is below Manhattan, including everything from secret subway stations to cave crickets? Then start digging into Julia Solis' anatomical report on the Big Subterranean Apple, which is dark and deep and, despite eight million people living on top of it, largely unknown.
-- Robert Sullivan, Author of Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants
Solis takes us spelunking beneath the city's streets, exploring its layers
of history along the way. Even New Yorkers will be astounded to discover the
secrets underground. Her entertaining and informative book dispels some favorite urban legends and unearths long-forgotten lore. -- Margaret Morton, Photographer and author of The Tunnel
Underground space is one we New Yorkers flee --the subway being its most familiar instance. But both in her text and in the photos Solis shows us its mysteries, beauties, dangers, and desolations.
-- Saskia Sassen, author of The Global City
Mentioned. -- Publishers Weekly
Tokens of Esteem
Diehl's Subways and Julia Solis's New York Underground commemorate the subway's anniversary in different but complementary ways. Diehl's is a compact, well-illustrated history of the system, from the one-block, pneumatically driven line that Alfred Ely Beach constructed in the late 1860s -- incredibly, he built it secretly, because Boss Tweed's cronies were opposed to subways -- to the revival of the system in the 1990s after its painful decline in the 1970s. The subways are only part of the story that Solis tells. Herself what might be called an urban spelunker -- a person who loves to explore urban undergrounds -- she provides a tour of everything in New York from sewers and water mains to railroad tunnels and secret wine cellars built (most famously, at the 21 club) during Prohibition.
. -- Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post
Mentioned. -- New York Sun
Solis addresses contemporary urban myths about life below the streets of New York, including alligators in the sewers, abandoned subway stations, secret passageways and hidden speakeasies. Her journeys through the tunnels that traverse the depths of the city are fascinating (and passages are often accompanied by the author's own photographs); her discoveries include graffiti art, homeless enclaves, and of course, gigantic rats. -- Time Out New York
An illustrated historical tour of New York's vast underground systems - from the bowels of Grand Central Terminal to the labyrinthine ruins of the Old Croton Aqueduct. Stories of the how these structures came into existence, with pictures of the strange artifacts of abandoned train stations and the work of the city's underground graffiti artists.
. -- Architecture Week
Author profile, book mentioned. -- SOMA Magazine
The 251-page tome of text and photography takes readers into a clandestine universe of subway tunnels, crumbling aqueducts, forgotten speakeasies and ruins of former insane asylums -- all places that this redheaded explorer relishes...Solis also has explored the burial catacombs below old St. Patrick's Cathedral, checked out the pea-green cyclotron in the basement of Columbia University, used by Italian physicist Enrico Fermi in groundbreaking experiments that led to the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and found her way into the claustrophobic tunnels used by underworld criminals.

. -- San Francisco Chronicle

Product Description

Did alligators ever really live in New York’s sewers? What’s it like to take a raft through the city’s old water tunnels? How deep is Grand Central Station? And how exactly did the New York postal office’s pneumatic tube system work?

In this richly illustrated historical tour of New York’s vast underground systems, Julia Solis maps out the anatomical foundation of the city—from the bowels of Grand Central Terminal to the labyrinthine ruins of the Old Croton Aqueduct to the old gang tunnels that run below the streets of Chinatown. Along the way, she tells the fascinating stories of the how these structures came into existence. For instance, a 19th century publisher secretly built the city’s first subway tunnel— an opulent one-block showpiece—in an effort to rally public support for efficient public transportation while evading the corrupt hand of Boss Tweed. She also uncovers the dark crypts of the city’s first cathedral, the creepy passageways beneath a Staten Island hospital, the strange artifacts of abandoned train stations, and the work of the city’s underground graffiti artists.

Solis, an accomplished photographer, has spent years investigating this subterranean world that she describes as "incredibly desolate and yet alive." New York Underground is the chronicle of her journeys, recounted through stories of dangerous travels through claustrophobic tunnels and her own striking photographs.

While New York City is justly famous for what lies aboveground, its underground passages are equally legendary and tell us just as much about the workings of the city.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 296 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (October 28, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415950139
• ISBN-13: 978-0415950138
• Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 8.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #675,795 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Too Much of the Author, January 12, 2006

By	D. N. Roth - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The book is an interesting look into the lost and forgotten places of the New York Underground. There is a lot of history presented by the author which is interesting and insightful.

However, after the book starts exploring the author's expeditions, it sort of becomes like watching a relative's slide show of their recent RV trip. The photographs become "Here I am in [x aqueduct]" and "Here I am in [x tunnel]." In other words, the book loses its focus on being informative, and rather focuses on the author herself.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars underground review, November 9, 2006

By	Andrew Beneze "azpicman" (Arizona) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Excellent book if you are looking for the real stories behind (or below) the streets of NY. Nicely written. Sticks to the facts and the author's impressions of the scenes did not affect the character of the book. The photographs are amazing! If you want a good introduction into the NY underground this is the place to start.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Truth May Be Stranger Than Fiction, January 25, 2007

By	Rosemarie S. "Radcliffe" (New Jersey, USA) - See all my reviews

This is a great book for anyone interested in learning more about the Tunnels under New York City. Solis gives interesting accounts of the history behind each kind of tunnel and her own experiences exploring them. She warns that while popular fiction on this topic may be overly romanticized, she sticks solely with the FACTS. However, even thought I am a BIG fan of one such fictional account of the people living below New York City, the '80s TV series "Beauty & the Beast," I was still very much intrigued and amazed by her "real life" stories. Great pictures of the Tunnels found throughout the book as well.