ONLY IN NEW YORK
Booklist, 2005

This is list of non-fiction books mainly about the rich history of New York for the general reader. These books are available for free loan, in recorded and/or braille formats, to all participants in the Library of Congress National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped program. Titles for children and teens are included in this list. 

RC = Recorded Cassette; BR= Braille Book.

HISTORY AND CULTURE

 722 Miles: The Building of the Subways and How They Transformed New York
Clifton Hood
RC 5300
A history follows the evolution of the New York subway system from visionary idea to engineering reality. 1993.

 About Town: The New Yorker and the World It Made
Ben Yagoda
RC 51694
A well-researched critical history of the magazine's first seventy-five years. 2000.

 All Roads Lead to October: Boss Steinbrenner's 25-Year Reign Over the New York Yankees
Maury Allen
RC 51608
Sportswriter reminisces about the New York Yankee baseball organization under the ownership of Cleveland industrialist George Steinbrenner. Some strong language. 2000.

 American Ground, Unbuilding the World Trade Center
William Langewiesche
BR 14746
Author witnesses the daily dismantling of the ruins of New York's World Trade Center for nine months after the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001. 2002.

 The Battle for New York: The City at the Heart of the American Revolution
Barnet Schecter
RC 56860
Examines the crucial role of New York City in the Revolutionary War. 2002.

 Beautiful Mornin': The Broadway Musical
Ethan Mordden
RC 50761
Discusses the shift in the focus of 1940s musicals from comedy routines to plays and identifies some defining features of the new form. 1999.

 Before and After: Stories from New York
Edited by Thomas Beller
RC 5396
A series of true stories from New York City written before and after September 11, 2001. Some strong language, some violence. 2002.

 The Black Churches of Brooklyn
Clarence Taylor
RC 5206
Examines how the black churches in Brooklyn have helped their members cope with life in segregated American cities, and have played a role in changing society. 1994.

   Crossing Ocean Parkway: Readings by an Italian American Daughter
Marianna De Marco Torgovnick
RC 5240
The author shares her experiences growing up Italian American and working class in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, and realizing that she will always be crossing Ocean Parkway to follow her dreams. 1994.

 Divided We Stand: A Biography of New York's World Trade Center
Eric Darton
RC 54587
A history of the Manhattan landscape from 1626 until 1999. Traces the political and economic forces that led to the construction and financing of the World Trade Center. 1999.

   Firehouse
David Halberstam
RC 54444
Account of the New York City firefighters from Engine 40, Ladder 35, who responded to the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Bestseller. 2002.

 The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld
Herbert Asbury
RC 55088
Uses police records, newspapers, and criminals' memoirs to chronicle the crime permeating New York City in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Some violence and some strong language. 1927.

 Gotham Unbound: How New York City Was Liberated from the Grip of Organized Crime
James B. Jacobs
RC 50054
An in-depth account of the impact of the Cosa Nostra on business, labor, and politics in New York City in the 20th century. 1999.

 Grand Central Winter: Stories from the Street
Caverly Stringer
RC 5218
The author's experiences on the streets of New York City. 1998.

 The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge
David McCullough
RC 58715
Saga of a monumental engineering feat: construction of a suspension bridge spanning New York's East River. 1972.

 Greenwich Village 1963: Avant-Garde Performance and the Effervescent Body
Sally Banes
RC 5220
Author draws a vibrant portrait of the artists and performers who gave the 1963 Village its exhilarating force. 1993.

 Greenwich Village: Culture and Counterculture
Edited by Rick Beard and Leslie Cohen Berlowitz
RC 5194
Treating the Village as an urban microcosm, the twenty-two essays in Greenwich Village explore its architecture and art, cultural dimensions, political life, and peoples. 1993.

 Hoot!: A Twenty-Five Year History of the Greenwich Village Music Scene
Robbie Woliver
RC 5223
A unique collection of reminiscences about and surrounding this grass-roots locale, revealing one of the most creative and turbulent eras in modern American culture. 1986.

 The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America
Russell Shorto
RC 58272
Portrait of the "first New Yorkers" — the earliest European inhabitants of Manhattan predating the thirteen "original" English colonies. 2004.

 It Happened in Brooklyn: An Oral History of Growing Up in the Borough in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s
Myrna Katz Frommer
RC 5343
An oral history of growing up in Brooklyn in the mid-twentieth century; more than 100 people recall their youth in wistful, pointed, and funny stories. 1993.

 Last Man Down: A Firefighter's Story of Survival and Escape from the World Trade Center
Richard Picciotto
RC 54321
Fire chief Richard "Pitch" Picciotto of the Eleventh Battalion describes being trapped in the north tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, when it collapsed. Strong language. 2002.

 Live from New York: An Uncensored Story of Saturday Night Live
Tom Shales
RC 55275
Oral history of the television show Saturday Night Live, which premiered in 1975. Strong language. Bestseller. 2002.

 Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York
Luc Sante
RC 5231
An anthropoetic tour through the underworld of Old New York. 1991.

 The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem, 1880-1950
Robert Anthony Orsi
RC 5113
The story of a popular religious celebration, the annual fiesta of the Madonna of Mount Carmel on East 115th Street, a poor and changing community of Italian Harlem. 1985.

 Manhattan North Homicide
Thomas McKenna
RC 5355
The true story of one of New York's best homicide cops. McKenna's cases include the Central Park Jogger, the Preppie Murder, and the Baby Maldonado Case. Descriptions of violence. 1996.

 Manhattan, When I Was Young
Mary Cantwell
RC 5197
An editor at The New York Times recounts her journey through the publishing and fashion worlds of New York City in the fifties and sixties.1995.

 Metropolis: New York as Myth, Marketplace, and Magical Land
Jerome Charyn
RC 5104
Using himself as a "persona" and a "camera eye," the author delves into the complex makeup of modern New York. 1986.

 The Mole People: Life in the Tunnels Beneath New York City
Jennifer Toth
RC 5207
A compelling, compassionate and extraordinary documentary about the thousands of people living in the subway, railroad, and sewage tunnels, who are known as "Mole people." 1993.

 Molto Agitato: The Mayhem Behind the Music at the Metropolitan Opera
Johanna Fiedler
RC 54391
Insider's view of the Metropolitan Opera and its politics. Describes the power struggle between the creative, social, and financial forces that have shaped the opera company's history since its founding in 1883. 2001

 NYPD: A City and Its Police
James Lardner
RC 5357, RC 52137
New York City's police department from the 1820s to the late-twentieth century. Describes the force as the oldest in America and the model upon which others have been patterned. Violence. 2000.

 The New York Approach: Robert Moses, Urban Liberals, and Redevelopment of the Inner City
Joel Schwartz
RC 5167
Examines Robert Moses's role in shaping the city. 1993.

 The New York City Draft Riots: Their Significance for American Society and Politics in the Age of the Civil War
Iver Bernstein
RC 5115
Chronicle of a particularly black chapter of the Civil War, the New York City draft riots of July 1863, the bloodiest riots in American history. Violence. 1990.

   Notes on Broadway: Conversations with the Great Songwriters
Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn
RC 5136
An exciting, revealing, and honest portrait of such great composers as Jerry Herman, Jule Styne, Leonard Bernstein, Cy Coleman, and other Broadway giants. 1985.

 Once Upon a Time In New York: Jimmy Walker, Franklin Roosevelt, and the Last Great Battle of the Jazz Age
Herbert Mitgang
RC 5290
The murder of Arnold "Big Arnie" Rothstein, a world-class gambler who reputedly fixed the 1919 World Series, led to a crackdown against the underworld and its crooked officials. 2000.

   Rise of the New York Skyscraper, 1865-1913
Sarah Bradford Landau
RC 5277
Chronicles the history of New York's first skyscrapers, challenging conventional wisdom that it was in Chicago and not New York that the skyscraper was born. 1996.

 September 11, 2001: Attack on New York
Wilborn Hampton
RC 57305
Describes the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center and relates personal experiences of New Yorkers who lived through the collapse of the Twin Towers, including blind Omar Rivera, who walked down from the seventy-first floor with his guide dog to safety. For grades 6-9. 2003.

 Subway City: Riding the Trains, Reading New York
Michael W. Brooks
RC 5349
Explores New York's transit system as both fact and metaphor. The author traces the development of the subway from its inception as the newest and most efficient. 1997.

 Triangle: The Fire that Changed America
David Von Drehle
RC 57638
Chronicles the March 25, 1911, New York City garment factory fire that claimed the lives of 146 workers, mostly young immigrant women and children. Violence. 2003.

 Twin Towers: The Life of New York City's World Trade Center
Angus Kress Gillespie
RC 53309
A history of the World Trade Center, written before the destruction of the twin towers on September 11, 2001. Bestseller. 1999.

 Upper West Side Story: A History and Guide
Peter Salwen
RC 5390
A history of Manhattan's Upper West Side, home at one time to Edgar Allan Poe, Lillian Russell, Fanny Brice, Arturo Tuscsnini, Gertrude Stein, and John Lennon, among others. 1989.

 West Point: The First 200 Years: The Companion to the PBS Television Special
John Grant
RC 54244
History of the United States military academy, founded in 1802 in New York State's scenic Hudson River Valley. 2002.

 You Must Remember This: An Oral History of Manhattan from the 1890's to World War II
Jeff Kisseloff
RC 5143
Manhattan journalist Kisseloff offers recollections by long-time New Yorkers of what life was like in the Big Apple from the Mauve Decade to the bombings of Pearl Harbor. 1989.

GENERAL NON-FICTION

 Crimes Of New York: Stories of Crooks, Killers and Corruption from the World's Toughest City
Edited by Clint Willis
RC 58736
Fourteen previously published true-crime tales bring to life the Big Apple's illicit past and present. 2003.

 Wild Nights: Nature Returns to the City
Anne Matthews
RC 55069
New York City's sprawling encroachment on the countryside reveals the growing urban presence of wildlife including coyotes, wild turkeys, and migratory birds. 2001.

POETRY AND LITERATURE

 The Last Avant-Garde: The Making of the New York School of Poets
David Lehman
RC 50415
Combines cultural history, biography, and literary analysis. Profiles four major poets: John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, Frank O'Hara, and James Schuyler. 1998.

 Lost In Yonkers
Neil Simon
BR 10242
Pulitzer Prize. Play set in New York, 1942. After their mother's death, Arty and Jay are visiting their stern grandmother. For high school and older readers.

 Poetry in Motion: 100 Poems from the Subways and Buses
Edited by Molly Peacock, Elise Paschen, Neil Neches
RC 5291
Poetry collection by several authors. 1996.