The world beneath the city [Unknown Binding]

Robert Daley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1974

"Odd things going on under the sidewalks of New York...strange universe of power lines, gas pipes, telephone wires, subways and such, as well as the wriggling animals that contentedly exist among these intricate surroundings...a world as fascinating as any found by an oceanic skin diver...among its notables are "Smelly" Kelly ("the Subway Sniffer") and Teddy May ("King of the Sewers")...Alfred Eli Beach, an intrepid and likable pioneer who in 1870 devised the idea of a pneumatic subway but had the misfortune to tangle with Boss Tweed, emerging from the struggle a broken man...Mr. Daley has a nice way with an anecdote, and these and other figures emerge as rare personalities...the author also has an eye on the past...the hour in 1842 when thousands cheered the surging of Croton water into the city's reservoirs..."The Day They Chopped the Poles Down" in 1888...In 1904 the IRT subway opened, another gala moment...Brings personality to these impersonal services...good humored...water, gas, electricity and subways have a romantic past--in New York anyway."  --New York Times Book Review

 

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From the Author

I was asked by the New York Times Magazine to write a short article on whatever might be under the streets of the city--the magazine's idea, not mine, they were just being nice to me, for I was still largely unpublished. Since no one else was clamoring for my services, I agreed to do it. I got $150 for it, but next day came a call from an editor at Lippincott. Would I care to expand the piece into a book? I refused, explaining rather pompously that I was actually a novelist. Well, I was sort of. I already had two novels in a drawer, where they remain to this day. Months went by, no one accepted anything I wrote. Finally I called the Lippincott lady and said I would do it. The advance was $1,000. I had a wife, two children and a day job, so I wrote it mostly at night. Sometimes the people upstairs pounded on the ceiling to make me stop.  The book came out, achieved both sales and notoriety, much of the latter focused on the "Alligators in the Sewers" chapter, and nine month later came the first royalty check, $1,700. I was so inexperienced I had thought the advance was the end of it. That check made me feel richer than I had ever felt up to that time. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Robert Daley, a former New York Times foreign correspondent, is the author of 17 novels and 11 non-fiction books, including Prince of the City, and Portraits of France.  In 1971-72 he served as a New York City deputy police commissioner, a job and a year that turned out to be more intimate and more tumultuous than he had bargained for--much more. In the course of his career the author has managed to get deep inside, and to write about, a number of worlds, including the police of course, but also wine, opera, pro football, bullfighting, grand prix racing, even treasure diving and, in The World Beneath the City, underground New York. Eight of his books have been sold to the movies, six of which have been filmed so far, including Year of the Dragon, Prince of the City, and Hands of a Stranger. His work has been translated into fourteen languages.  He is married with three daughters, and divides his time between a house in Connecticut and an apartment in Nice, France. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Unknown Binding: 223 pages
• Publisher: Xerox University Microfilms; 1st edition (1974)
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0006W23OI

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