The co-author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 here uses his extensive knowledge of the city to guide a new vision of New York after September 11. Wallace was in the public library preparing a follow-up book to Gotham when the city was attacked. After following the many different proposals for renewal, Wallace decided to lay them against lessons from history. His premise is that New York digests crisis to make itself stronger and has done so repeatedly over its 400-year history. In this essay-like monograph, published in conjunction with the Gotham Center for New York City History, Wallace sees a revitalized port, improved mass transit and more affordable housing as essential goals, and points out that previous accomplishments of urban planning were on a much grander scale than will be necessary to rebuild downtown: the 1930s New Deal, for example, was responsible for building innumerable health clinics, libraries, educational facilities, homeless shelters, courthouses, firehouses, police stations, LaGuardia Airport, the FDR Drive and the Holland and Lincoln tunnels. Because the present budget crisis is no worse than the depression, Wallace sees no reason why renewal in this century should not be as progressive as it was in the last, since New York history has always shown that "the opposite side of disaster is opportunity."
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
"A New Deal for New York is a glorious, effor-rich, imaginitive, sensible, and necessary." -- James K. Galbraith, Lloyd M. Benstein Jr. Chair in Government/Business Relations at the University of Texas at Austin.
"A fantastic ride! A New Deal for New York is inspiring, thought-provoking and a joy to read." -- Thomas Kessner, author of Fiorello Laguardia and the Making of Modern New York
"A new Deal for New York is a lively, acute, and packed with usable information." -- Arthus Schlesinger
"Sheer Eloquence. Deftly and succinctly, (Wallace) identifues lower Manhattan's reconstruction as an historic opportunity to transform the city's development strategy." -- City Limits, November 2002
"The most cogent set of recommendations advanced in the past year of intense debate over the fate of Ground Zero." -- The New Republic
"Wallace sees no reason why renewal in this century should not be as progressive as it was in the last." -- Publishers Weekly
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