Greater Gotham: A History of New York City from 1898 to 1919

Description

In this utterly immersive volume, Mike Wallace captures the swings of prosperity and downturn, from the 1898 skyscraper-driven boom to the Bankers' Panic of 1907, the labor upheaval, and violent repression during and after the First World War. Here is New York on a whole new scale, moving from national to global prominence -- an urban dynamo driven by restless ambition, boundless energy, immigrant dreams, and Wall Street greed. Within the first two decades of the twentieth century, a newly consolidated New York grew exponentially. The city exploded into the air, with skyscrapers jostling for prominence, and dove deep into the bedrock where massive underground networks of subways, water pipes, and electrical conduits sprawled beneath the city to serve a surging population of New Yorkers from all walks of life. New York was transformed in these two decades as the world's second-largest city and now its financial capital, thriving and sustained by the city's seemingly unlimited potential. Wallace's new book matches its predecessor in pure page-turning appeal and takes America's greatest city to new heights. Cover A History of New York City from 1898 to 1919 Copyright Dedication Contents Introduction Vantage Points PART ONE: CONSOLIDATIONS AND CONTRADICTIONS 1. Mergers 2. Acquisitions 3. Consolidation 4. Wall Street 5. Critics and Crisis Muckrakers Teddy Panic of 1907 Other People’s Money 6. Who Rules New York? Bosses and Businessmen Radicals and Regulators Experts PART TWO: CONSTRUCTION AND CONNECTION 7. Sky Boom Skyline Why Skies? Builders, Engineers, Financiers Too Small? City Beauticians Too Tall! Zoning 8. Arteries Trains and Tunnels Boats and Docks Immigration Island Moving Freight Water Power Food In Garbage Out 9. Ligaments Bridges Els, Cables, Trolleys Planning the Subway Building the System Expanding the System The Automobiling Class 10. Housing Old Law, New Law Model Homes A Municipal Role? Fighting Congestion Working-Class Neighborhoods: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens The Bronx: Instant City Housing the Middle Class: Brooklyn, Queens Apartment Living in Manhattan Housing Styles of the Rich and Famous Summer Homes 11. Industrial and Commercial City Factor Town Touring the Industrial City The City of Commerce Department Stores Commerce v. Industry PART THREE: CULTURES 12. Acropoli Consolidating Culture Art by the Cartload Fossil Philanthropy The Bronx Zoo Wielding the Past Universities Libraries Opera Symphony The New Theatre 13. Show Biz Times Square Broadway Vaudeville Of Rats and Actors Tin Pan Alley Movies Nightlife Coney Island 14. Popular Cultures Staging Ethnicity Ragtime Chorus Line Everybody’s Doin’ It 15. Seeing New York PART FOUR: CONFRONTATIONS 16. Progressives The Age of Reform Settlements and Social Gospelers Child Labor Women’s Work Poverty Wars Health Schools A Bully Moose 17. Repressives Gangs of New York Cops and Robbers Vice and Vigilantes Prostitution Gambling Drink Drugs 18. Union Town Labor Day Builders and Printers Bang the Bell, Jack, I’m on Board Open-Shop Warriors Let’s Make a Deal Hardball Italians Jews 19. Radicals Jewish Radicals Italian Sovversivi Uprising in the Needle Trades Triangle and Tammany Wobblies and Socialists The Army of the Unemployed 20. Bending Gender Gorky New Women Backlash It Takes a Village Counterculture Feminists Fairies Birth Control Suffragists and Suffragettes 21. Black Metropolis Riot Hegira Caribbean Connection Jim Crow Housing Jim Crow Jobs Jim Crow Culture Black Progressives Civil Rights Harlem New Negroes 22. Insurgent Art Art Rebels Ash Can Realists Modernists’ Metropolis Armory Show Dreiser Wharton Dreams and Nightmares of Greater New York PART FIVE: WARS 23. Over There? Panic and Paralysis Recession A Prosperous Neutrality Cat’s Away Be Prepared! Peace Now! Hyphens Be American! In Uno Plures And the War Came 24. Over Here Johnny Get Your Gun Resistance and Repression Electoral Showdowns Into the Trenches The Germs of August The Potomac and the Hudson New York 1919 New World Order Endings and Beginnings Acknowledgments References Introduction to Sources and Suggestions for Further Reading Bibliography Index of Names Index of Subjects