New York, New York, New York: Four Decades of Success, Excess, and Transformation

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'[A] cogent narrative studded with pithy insights and vivid profiles... Dyja’s exhaustive knowledge of the era, dazzling prose, and all-embracing sympathy—and scorn when it’s merited—make for a stimulating study of New York’s never-ending upheaval." —Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Morally and politically charged, an urgent, readable story of Gotham’s fortunes." —Kirkus Reviews [Dyja] boldly anatomizes New York in a phenomenally intricate and revelatory web of provocative juxtapositions…A dynamic, passionately knowledgeable, surprising, and gutsy chronicle of a world-shaping city and humanity itself in all its paradoxical wonder. —Booklist (starred review) “Dyja’s stellar achievement with this indispensable book has been to write of the last four decades of New York in the very way that the city likes to think of itself—as propulsive, alluring, energetic, infuriating, scrappy, lyrical, nostalgic, omniscient, staggering, memorable, magical. The result is a history like no other for a city like no other.” —SIMON WINCHESTER, New York Times bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman and The Men Who United the States “This moment was made for New York, New York, New York. With writing like the city itself—undaunted, unswerving, vibrant, and urgent—Thomas Dyja has given each of us the key to the city. We should grab it so we can unlock how to renew and revitalize this cherished metropolis.” —RICHIE JACKSON, author of Gay Like Me: A Father Writes to His Son “Tom Dyja paints a wry, entertaining, and important portrait of New York City over the past half century. Offering vibrant detail and a vivid cast of characters, his is a pointillist portrait that makes a clear point: change is the dominant melody of this city—a city that will not be strangled by bankruptcy, or a coronavirus, or the motley collection of boobs who govern and loudmouths who grab attention. New York will always transcend its afflictions because, in Whitman’s phrase, it contains ‘multitudes.’” —KEN AULETTA, New Yorker writer and author of The Streets Were Paved with Gold “Alongside E. B. White’s Here Is New York, Jane Jacobs’s The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Robert Caro’s The Power Broker, and Luc Sante’s Low Life on my short shelf of essential books about America’s greatest urban place now goes Thomas Dyja’s splendid New York, New York, New York. This opinionated, encyclopedic, and wise chronicle coincides exactly with my time in the city so far, yet I learned something new on every page—and finished with a deeper appreciation of the astounding, self-loving, evolving hive New Yorkers inhabit.” —KURT ANDERSEN, New York Times bestselling author of Evil Geniuses and Fantasyland Cover Title Page Dedication Epigraph Introduction Part I: Renaissance Chapter One: “I Love New York” Day Chapter Two: Something It Hadn’t Been Chapter Three: New York Equalize You Chapter Four: Every Night a Different Channel Chapter Five: To Lake Ladoga, and Beyond Chapter Six: The Age of the Individual Chapter Seven: Be a Card-Carrying Capitalist Chapter Eight: They Begin to Blossom Chapter Nine: The Devil and Ed Koch Chapter Ten: From Queens Come Kings! Chapter Eleven: Building the Bonfire Part II: Reconsideration Chapter Twelve: The Age of Atonement Chapter Thirteen: A Psychic Turning Point Chapter Fourteen: Dave, Do Something! Chapter Fifteen: Mayor School Chapter Sixteen: The End of the One-Tribe Nation Chapter Seventeen: You Were on Your Own Part III: Reformation Chapter Eighteen: More Like the Rest of America Chapter Nineteen: Larceny in Everyone’s Heart Chapter Twenty: Cyber City Chapter Twenty-one: Whose World Is This? Chapter Twenty-two: Heat Is Quality Chapter Twenty-three: Stand Clear of the Closing Doors September 11, 2001 Part IV: Reimagination Chapter Twenty-four: The Pile, the Pit, and the Bullpen Chapter Twenty-five: Oz Wasn’t Built in a Day Chapter Twenty-six: “B’klyn Cheers, Trembles” Chapter Twenty-seven: Too Big to Fail Chapter Twenty-eight: Hard Landings Epilogue Photographs Acknowledgments About the Author Notes Index Copyright