In the tradition of poets who could make poetry pay—Byron, McKuen, Collins—William Cullen Bryant earned his place by having once been offered the princely sum of $1,000 in antebellum currency for any occasional verse he might... Read More

A veritable language factory, New York City may very well deserve its preferred moniker of being the greatest city in the world, at least when it comes to its influence on the way that English is spoken. The telling fact is that New... Read More

The post-Pill, pre-AIDS decade of 1974—1984 was uniquely rich in art and performance. Because most locations are gone, many artists displaced, much “product” lost to the public, and even the most arresting work and events slipping... Read More

Lisandro Pérez’s "Sugar, Cigars, and Revolution" is a fascinating excursion into nineteenth-century New York, when wealthy plantation owners strolled its streets. It serves as a comprehensive guide to the social, cultural, and... Read More

Shocking yet scholarly book paints very real portrait of NYC poverty through the centuries. The mention of homelessness and New York City generally conjures images of men with ragged clothes clutching cups and begging for spare change.... Read More

Millions of people in New York City means millions of stories. Some of the stories we know-those of famous actors, bankers, philanthropists, and scores of other people who made themselves great in the Big Apple. But what about the people... Read More

A riveting true crime story from history, Alex Hortis’s "The Witch of New York" chronicles the misogynist frenzy surrounding a notorious murder trial. On Christmas in 1843, a gruesome discovery horrified the close-knit community of... Read More

In "Language City", Ross Perlin argues that the quintessential New Yorker is neither an artist from Brooklyn nor a Wall Street banker, but a working-class multilingual immigrant living in Queens. His book weaves personal stories with... Read More