Best of
Cities

2002

Mi Revalueshanary Fren


Linton Kwesi Johnson - 2002
    During his teenage years in Brixton, Johnson witnessed serial episodes of racial abuse and joined the Black Panthers movement in protest. There, he learned his history and culture, but found his own outlet.”—Caroline Frost, BBC FourLinton Kwesi Johnson is the most influential black poet in Britain. The author of five previous collections of poetry and numerous record albums, he is known worldwide for his fusion of lyrical verse and reggae. Much of his work is written in the street Creole of the Caribbean communities in which he grew up in England. Mi Revalueshanary Fren includes all of his best-known poems, which concern racism and politics, personal experience, philosophy, and the art of music, among other things.Contains a full-length CD of Johnson reading.

Empire City: New York Through the Centuries


Kenneth T. Jackson - 2002
    This major anthology brings together not only the best literary writing about New York--from O. Henry, Theodore Dreiser, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck, Paul Auster, and James Baldwin, among many others--but also the most revealing essays by politicians, philosophers, city planners, social critics, visitors, immigrants, journalists, and historians.The anthology begins with an account of Henry Hudson's voyage in 1609 and ends with an essay written especially for this book by John P. Avlon, former Mayor Rudolph Guiliani's speechwriter, called "The Resilient City," on the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center as observed from City Hall. The editors have chosen some familiar favorites, such as Washington Irving's A History of New York and Walt Whitman's "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," as well as lesser-known literary and historical gems, such as Frederick Law Olmsted's plan for Central Park and Cynthia Ozick's "The Synthetic Sublime"--an updated answer to E. B. White's classic essay Here Is New York, which is also included. The variety and originality of the selections in Empire City offer a captivating account of New York's growth, and reveal often forgotten aspects of its political, literary, and social history.

Dead Cities: And Other Tales


Mike Davis - 2002
    Davis examines themes of urban life today - white flight, housing and job segregation and discrimination - and looks at areas he calls national sacrifice zones, military landscapes that simulated warfare and arms production have rendered uninhabitable. Davis begins his apocalyptically inflected tour with a trip to New York's Ground Zero and to the diabolic miracle of Las Vegas.

City Secrets: New York City


Robert Kahn - 2002
    City Secrets New York City, edited by Robert Kahn, is a breathtaking guide to art, food, architecture, and cultural landmarks in all five boroughs, written by more than 300 savvy and sophisticated New Yorkers. The entries range in tone from the literary to the conversational, the humorous to the scholarly. Together, this collection of vignettes forms not only a practical guidebook, but a dazzling panorama of the magnificent city.In the pages of City Secrets New York City:†A Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist evokes a timeless Village bookstore†An artist takes you on an intimate tour of three exceptional paintings†A food editor invites you into the sepia-toned interiors of vintage saloons†An architect introduces you to the tailor that fitted Ernest Hemingway in the 1930's†A writer leads you to the Diamond District to find the best cheese blintzes in the city†A producer recommends a Midtown coffee shop where actors, directors and producers can be found hatching the next Broadway hitThis elegant, clothbound book features a subtle, non-guidebook design, detailed maps of all five boroughs, and recommended reading. New Yorkers who contributed to City Secrets New York City include: novelists Michael Cunningham and Rick Moody, actors Laura Linney and Eric Stolz, journalists Anna Quindlen and Kurt Andersen, poet laureate Mark Strand, neurologist Oliver Sacks, architects Richard Meier and Philip Johnson, MoMA director Glenn Lowry, artist Brice Marden, playwright John Guare, designer Kate Spade, and many others, including historians, urban archaeologists, gourmets, curators, and filmmakers.

The Voluntary City: Choice, Community, and Civil Society


David T. Beito - 2002
    Unfortunately, many proposals for improving our communities rely on renewed governmental efforts without a similar recognition that the inflexibility and poor accountability of governments have often worsened society's ills. The Voluntary City investigates the history of large-scale, private provision of social services, the for-profit provision of urban infrastructure and community governance, and the growing privatization of residential life in the United States to argue that most decentralized, competitive markets can contribute greatly to community renewal.Among the fascinating topics covered are: how mutual-aid societies in America, Great Britain, and Australia provided their members with medical care, unemployment insurance, sickness insurance, and other social services before the welfare state; how private law, known historically as the law merchant, is returning in the form of arbitration; and why the rise of neighborhood associations represents the most comprehensive privatization occurring in the United States today.The volume concludes with an epilogue that places the discoveries of The Voluntary City within the theory of market and government failure and discusses the implications of these discoveries for theories about the private provision of public goods. A refreshing challenge to the position that insists government alone can improve community life, The Voluntary City will be of special interest to students of history, law, urban life, economics, and government.David T. Beito is Associate Professor of History, University of Alabama. Peter Gordon is Professor in the School of Policy, Planning, and Development and Department of Economics, University of Southern California. Alexander Tabarrok is Vice President and Research Director, the Independent Institute.

Drawn From Life


Ernest H. Shepard - 2002
    It describes Shepard's experiences through school, his student days and his marriage to a fellow art student shortly after he had succeeded, at the age of 24, in getting a picture hung at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. These memoirs end on his wedding day, facing married life with #70 in the bank as his total financial resources, and yet full of hope and confidence for the future. Ernest Shepard, "Kipper" to his friends, was born in 1879. He attended art school at the Royal Academy and served in World War I, after which he made his living as an artist and political cartoonist for "Punch" magazine.

Pompeii


Filippo Coarelli - 2002
    Destroyed by an eruption of Mt. Vesuvius that began on the morning of August 24, 79 A.D., the buried city has preserved for all time a unique record of the life of its inhabitants. Unlike other ancient cities such as Rome that have a continuous history and layer upon layer of subsequent development, Pompeii has revealed itself to its excavators exactly as it was on that fateful day. Scorching clouds of fine ash suffocated every living creature, making it impossible for them to flee. Roofs collapsed and buildings were buried under the weight of the stone fragments hurled by the volcano. The massive destruction deprived the city and its people of a future, but also recorded their mute testimony for later generations. This is the most complete, informative, and beautiful book on Pompeii ever published. Written by scholars who have been active participants in the excavation and study of Pompeii, it offers the latest research yet is addressed to a general audience. More than 500 color photographs convey the incredible richness of the city, the unsurpassed elegance of its interiors, and the great beauty of its art, including sculpture, frescoes, and mosaics. There is fabulous jewelry, including rings, necklaces, and bracelets. Fifteen individual houses receive detailed attention, along with the famous suburban villas, the Villa of the Mysteries and the Villa of Poppea at Oplontis. The urban development of the city, including the construction of its walls and the function of its government buildings, is explained. A separate section describes the major temples and religious practices. The interesting and varied economic activities in Pompeii are explored through descriptions of the meat and fish market, the office of weights and measures, the taverns and cafes, and the workshops that cleaned and processed cloth. Bread is given its due, with the description of a bakery. And there is a rustic villa, the Villa della Pisanella at Boscoreale, with its machinery for producing oil and wine, its apartments for the owners, and dormitory for the slaves. The fascinating social life of Pompeii is seen in descriptions of the gladiator games, athletic competitions, the theaters, and the public baths. There is a section on the famous Lupanare, or brothel, and a concluding chapter on funeral practices and the many tombs that line the streets outside the city walls. This book will appeal to travellers, to students of Rome and the ancient world, to artists, designers, architects, urban planners, historians, and anyone else who might wish to understand and appreciate the beauty and achievements of Pompeii. About the AuthorsFilippo Coarelli (Rome, 1936) is Professor of Greek and Roman Antiquities at the University of Perugia. He is one of the foremost experts on Roman antiquities, a connoisseur of the history of early Rome, and a leading expert on Roman topography. Emidio de Albentiis (Milan, 1958) received his degree with a thesis devoted to one of the insulae in Pompeii, and has written many studies of Roman houses and of the artistic culture of the Republican and Imperial eras. He presently teaches art history at the Academy of Fine Arts of Perugia. Maria Paola Guidobaldi (Colonella, 1961) received her doctorate from the University for Studies in Perugia. Besides works on history, topography and Roman antiquities meant for a popular audience, she is the author of scholarly papers on various aspects of the Romanization of ancient Italy. On the staff of the Archeological Superintendence of Pompeii, she is currently director of the excavations at Herculaneum. Fabrizio Pesando (Ivrea, 1958) is Associate Professor of Classical Archeology at the University of Naples and teaches Archeology of Magna Graecia and Antiquities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. He has specialized in the history of the private house in Greece and Rome, the archeology of the Vesuvian cities and the historical topography of Greece and ancient Italy. He is in charge of excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum for the Istituto Universitario Orientale. Antonio Varone (Angri, 1952) is the Coordinating Archeological Director for the Ministry of Cultural Assets and Activities and since 1984 has been in charge of the scientific-cultural service of the Archeological Superintendence of Pompeii. His many publications include one on the excavation of the Insula of the Chaste Lovers that began in 1987, and a study of inscriptions on walls in the area surrounding Vesuvius for a new supplement to volume IV of the Corpus Iscriptionum Latinorum.

Down And Out: The Life and Death of Minneapolis’s Skid Row


Edwin C. Hirschoff - 2002
    Encompassing some twenty-five blocks centering on the intersection of Hennepin, Washington, and Nicollet Avenues, the neighborhood was demolished between 1959 and 1963 as part of the first federally funded urban renewal project in America. Gathered here for the first time, Edwin C. Hirschoff's stark and moving images of the Gateway district's final days -- its streets, buildings, and parks, the rubble, smoke, and heavy equipment of its destruction -- eloquently capture its demise. Down and Out provides a unique historical perspective and the most extensive photographic record available of the Gateway demolition project.Joseph Hart's engaging and comprehensive essay complements Hirschoff's photographs by detailing the district's social and economic evolution and the political decision making that led to its destruction. Hart presents a popular history of Minneapolis's skid row and the people who lived there, migrant workers who learned that changes in the local economy could quickly degrade their status from valued laborer to societal menace (vagrant, tramp, or bum). By capturing the texture of life on skid row, Hart reveals the lost American culture of a bygone community.

The Slaughter of Cities: Urban Renewal as Ethnic Cleansing


E. Michael Jones - 2002
    In his meticulously documented book, Jones focuses on four cities to prove that urban renewal over the past decades had more to do with ethnicity that it ever had to do with design, hygiene, or urban blight.

Los Angeles Then and Now (Compact)


Rosemary Lord - 2002
    Los Angeles Then & Now is a captivating chronicle of history and change in the mecca of glamour and glitz.This tell-all book matches 70 historic images with 70 specially-commissioned photos of modern LA, showing the amazing evolution of California’s largest city.Notice how Native American and Spanish Colonial architectural and cultural influences reside comfortably alongside the glitz of Tinseltown and the cosmopolitan high-rises of LA.Movie fans will enjoy the many then-and-now pix of legendary Hollywood landmarks like Schwab’s Pharmacy, Paramount Studios, Grauman’s Chinese Theater, and the Roosevelt Hotel.Along with a “Map to the Stars Homes,” this compact edition of best-selling Los Angeles Then & Now makes the perfect travel guide.

Las Vegas Then and Now


Su Kim Chung - 2002
    Part of the highly successful Then & Now series, each spread shows an image of Las Vegas as it was, and how it is currently.

Microcosm: A Portrait of a Central European City


Norman Davies - 2002
    As a result, the area has witnessed a profusion of languages, cultures, religions and nationalities.The history of Silesia's main city can be seen as a fascinating tale in its own right, but it is more than that. It embodies all the experiences that have made Central Europe what it is -- the rich mixture of nationalities and cultures; the German settlement and the reflux of the Slavs; a Jewish presence of exceptional distinction; a turbulent succession of Imperial rules; and the shattering exposure to both Nazis and Stalinists. In short, it is a Central European microcosm.The third largest German city of the mid-nineteenth century, Breslau's population reached one million in 1945, before the bitter German defence of the city against the Soviets wrought almost total destruction. Transferred to Poland after the war, Breslau has risen from ruins and is again a thriving economic and cultural centre of the region.

The Automat: The History, Recipes, and Allure of Horn & Hardart's Masterpiece


Marianne Hardart - 2002
    In a country where the industrial revolution had just taken hold, eating at a restaurant with self-serving vending machines rather than waitresses and Art Deco architecture instead of stuffy dining rooms was an unforgettable experience. The Automat served freshly made food for the price of a few coins, and no one made a better cup of coffee. By the peak of its popularity—from the Great Depression to the post-war years—the Automat was more than an inexpensive place to buy a good meal; it was a culinary treasure, a technical marvel, and an emblem of the times.The Automat will take readers back to the days of Charles Lindbergh and Babe Ruth, Walter Winchell and Jack Benny, the Brooklyn Dodgers and shows at Radio City. Through beautiful archival photography, candid interviews, delicious recipes, and wonderfully evocative memorabilia, Lorraine Diehl and Marianne Hardart bring to life a time when a handful of nickels and the twist of a wrist bought a good square meal—Macaroni and Cheese, Boston Baked Beans, Chicken Pot Pie, Rice Pudding, and all the other favorites whose recipes are in these pages. The Automat was a true American treasure, and here is its tribute.

Cleveland Heights:: The Making of an Urban Suburb


Marian J. Morton - 2002
    The region was once home to Native American tribes including the Erie and Seneca, and stalwart pioneers established settlements in the area as early as the late eighteenth century. In the post-Civil War period, as Cleveland was becoming an industrial metropolis, affluent residents began moving to the newly developed "garden suburbs," anxious to live closer to nature and farther from the smoky city and its increasingly diverse population. Born of this same desire, Cleveland Heights was founded in 1901. Here, in this isolated countryside owned by substantial families like the Silsbys, Minors, Comptons, and Taylors, entrepreneurs and city officials envisioned a clean and comfortable suburb for Cleveland's elite. Officially designated a city in 1921, Cleveland Heights quickly became not the homogenized suburb envisioned by early developers, but a community of widely divergent neighborhoods and people. Newcomers belonged to varying class, religious, ethnic, and racial backgrounds. A century after its founding, Cleveland Heights has become an "inner-ring urban suburb," boasting gracious homes of architectural distinction and attractive parks, but also facing the modern challenges of a dwindling population and commercial districts in need of economic revitalization. This new volume illustrates, in both word and image, the evolving life of Cleveland Heights from its beginning as part of East Cleveland Township, one of the region's first suburbs, to the present day.

Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India


Ashutosh Varshney - 2002
    Ashutosh Varshney examines three pairs of Indian cities—one city in each pair with a history of communal violence, the other with a history of relative communal harmony—to discern why violence between Hindus and Muslims occurs in some situations but not others. His findings will be of strong interest to scholars, politicians, and policymakers of South Asia, but the implications of his study have theoretical and practical relevance for a broad range of multiethnic societies in other areas of the world as well. The book focuses on the networks of civic engagement that bring Hindu and Muslim urban communities together. Strong associational forms of civic engagement, such as integrated business organizations, trade unions, political parties, and professional associations, are able to control outbreaks of ethnic violence, Varshney shows. Vigorous and communally integrated associational life can serve as an agent of peace by restraining those, including powerful politicians, who would polarize Hindus and Muslims along communal lines.

The Birth of the Detroit Sound: 1940-1964


Marilyn Bond - 2002
    Detroit disc jockey Alan Freed, among the very first to play and promote new music, christened it "Rock 'n Roll" from an old blues lyric. Detroit, like New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Memphis, contributed its own distinctive regional character to the music and became a hub of industry activity. An epicenter of American music by the mid-1950s, Detroit built its reputation upon a wealth of talented singers and musicians, the vast amount of clubs and theaters available to them, and a multitude of enthusiastic industry professionals who helped bring their unique sound to the world. Many record labels, including Fortune and Fox, also thrived in the metro Detroit area in the days before Berry Gordy's Motown Records gained international recognition. This book documents the extraordinary style of music that took shape in Detroit well before Motown was a gleam in Gordy's eye. The Birth of the Detroit Sound chronicles great talents like John Lee Hooker, Hank Ballard & the Midnighters, Jackie Wilson, Jack Scott, Andre Williams, and Nolan Strong. Featuring a rare collection of vintage photographs, the book also spotlights record industry personalities, deejays, and long-forgotten venues where the giants of Detroit music once performed.

Shasta Lake: Boomtowns and the Building of the Shasta Dam


Al Rocca - 2002
    Shasta Dam would be America's last large concrete dam and would take years to build, offering employment for those fortunate enough to secure a construction job during the Great Depression. Captured here in over 200 rare photographs is the story of the building of Shasta Dam, the boomtowns that resulted from its construction, and the residents who made the Shasta Lake region what it is today. America's master dam builder Frank T. Crowe and his band of dam builders diverted the Sacramento River and began the massive job of excavating millions of yards of dirt and rock. Meanwhile, boomtowns housing dam workers and their families rapidly expanded, developing both commercial and residential zones. Work on the dam was completed in 1945 and the question arose: Would the boomtowns survive? Featuring images from the United States Bureau of Reclamation and the Shasta Lake Historical Society, this new book focuses on both towns that no longer exist and some that still thrive, including Redding, Toyon, Shasta Dam Village, Project City, Summit City, and Central Valley.

Being Political: Genealogies of Citizenship


Engin F. Isin - 2002
    Being Political disrupts these images by approaching citizenship as otherness, presenting a powerful critique of universalistic and orientalist interpretations of the origins of citizenship and a persuasive alternative history of the present struggles over citizenship.Who were the strangers and outsiders of citizenship? What strategies and technologies were invented for constituting those forms of otherness? Focusing on these questions, rather than on the images conveyed by history's victors, Being Political offers a series of genealogies of citizenship as otherness. Engin F. Isin invokes the city as a "difference machine," recovering slaves, peasants, artisans, prostitutes, vagabonds, savages, flextimers, and squeegee men in the streets of the polis, civitas, metropolis, and cosmopolis. The result is a challenge to think in bolder terms about citizenship at a time when the nature of citizenship is an increasingly open question.

Suburban Space: The Fabric of Dwelling


Renee Y. Chow - 2002
    Chow offers an alternate vision to the conventional suburban housing that characterizes much of our domestic landscape. Her integrated, original approach to design sees the residential setting as a fabric of interrelated spaces that supports cultural diversity and change, promotes sharing in a setting, and sustains a more intense use of land. With its concise, informative text and abundant illustrations—including photographs and Chow's superbly executed drawings—Suburban Space challenges architects, landscape architects, developers, and planners to reconceptualize suburban housing.Chow has made comparative studies of neighborhoods in Boston, Charleston, San Francisco, Levittown, Radburn, and housing by Rudolf Schindler and Irving Gill, as well as other residential settings. Her argument for a fabric of dwelling is founded not on generalizations about how people live but on documented observations of the particular ways in which people organize their daily lives. This groundbreaking book demonstrates how one of the most disparaged yet common types of housing in the United States can become more environmentally and culturally viable.

Springfield: A Reflection in Photography


Edward J. Russo - 2002
    Local people are seen at work, at play and socializing. Iron workers, construction crews and munitions makers show us the gritty, tiring work of a community and emphasize the man and animal power once common in industry. There are social changes as well, like the coming of women to the workplace. Shirtwaisted ladies at the Illinois Watch Company and "Rosie the Riveter" on the production line during the war make their appearance. Aerial views of the downtown area present a century of change in Springfield. The evolution of transportation in the community is chronicled, from horse and buggy to the railroad to the automobile. Images of ladies cooking at Temple and crews preparing community garden plots showcase the city's volunteer service heritage. Commonplace images of life in Springfield, such as children at play, shopping, parades, and the first day of school, are all presented here. But the less common events are included as well: fires, the race riot, even a baptism at Lake Springfield. Together, these images tell the story of who we were, and perhaps more importantly, who we have become as a result. This book shows a community readers may know intimately, yet have never seen.

The Houses We Live In: An Identification Guide to the History and Style of American Domestic Architecture


Jeffery W. Howe - 2002
    Highly illustrated with stunning color photographs and drawings to identify key recognition features, it covers a variety of architectural styles from colonial to modern American.

Christmas on State Street: 1940's and Beyond


Robert P. Ledermann - 2002
    The name itself stands the test of time, remembered by anyone who lived in or visited Chicago. It is the main artery of the heart of the city. It is where memories were made and kept. This book vividly recreates, for the first time, a Christmas holiday trip down State Street. You will visit many of the major shops and stores that existed during the 1940s and beyond, viewing old display windows and getting reacquainted with famous Christmas characters such as Weiboldts's Cinnamon Bear, Montgomery Wards's Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and the crown jewel of State Street, Marshall Fields's Uncle Mistletoe. Through these historic photographs, many never before published, you will relive the excitement of State Street's Christmas parade, the charm of holiday dining in State Street's fine restaurants, and the magical wonder of a child's first holiday trip to State Street, complete with a visit to Santa.

Near West Side Stories: Struggles for Community in Chicago's Maxwell Street Neighborhood


Carolyn Eastwood - 2002
    The interviewees reminisce fondly on life in the neighborhood and tell of their struggles to save it and the 120-year-old Maxwell Street Market that was at its core. Midwest Independent Publishers Association Book Award - 2nd Place - Midwest Regional InterestHarold, Florence, Nate, and Hilda Dragon Slayers at Halsted and Roosevelt"You could be St. George and you couldn't slay that dragon," said Florence Scala. She was referring to her epic fight to preserve the Italian Taylor Street community from Mayor Richard J. Daley's plan to redevelop it for the University of Illinois. Yet, Scala and other ordinary citizens in Chicago's port-of-entry Near West Side neighborhood persisted in their extraordinary battles against some of the biggest power players in a city of clout."Near West Side Stories: Struggles For Community in Chicago's Maxwell Street Neighborhood" is an ongoing story of unequal power in Chicago. Four representatives of immigrant and migrant groups that have had a distinct territorial presence in the area--one Jewish, one Italian, one African-American, and one Mexican--reminisce fondly on life in the old neighborhood and tell of their struggles to save it and the 120-year-old Maxwell Street Market that was at its core."Near West Side Stories" brings this saga of community strife up to date, while giving a voice to the everyday people who were routinely discounted or ignored in the big decisions that affected their world. Though "slaying that dragon"--fending off the encroachments of those wielding great power--was nearly impossible, we see in the details of their lives the love for a place that compelled Harold, Florence, Nate, and Hilda to make the quest.

Big Plans: The Allure and Folly of Urban Design


Kenneth Kolson - 2002
    Inspired by the architectural and urban criticism of such writers as Lewis Mumford, Jane Jacobs, and John Brinckerhoff Jackson, Kolson adopts a user's perspective on issues of urban design, an approach that highlights both the futility of social engineering and the resilience of the human spirit.

City Requiem, Calcutta: Gender and the Politics Of Poverty


Ananya Roy - 2002
    An ethnography of urban development in Calcutta, Roy's book explores the dynamics of class and gender in the persistence of poverty.City Requiem, Calcutta emphasizes how gender itself is spatialized, and how gender relations are negotiated within the geopolitics of modernity and through the everyday practices of territory. Thus Roy shows how urban developmentalism, in its populist guise, reproduces the relations of masculinist patronage, and, in its entrepreneurial guise, seeks to reclaim a bourgeois Calcutta, gentlemanly in its nostalgias. In doing so, her work expands the field of poverty studies by showing how a politics of poverty is also a poverty of knowledge, a construction and management of social and spatial categories.

Walking the High Line


Joel Sternfeld - 2002
    Since March 2000, photographer Joel Sternfeld has been documenting the abandoned elevated railway line which runs for 1.5 miles along the West Side of New York City, from 34th Street down along the edge of the Hudson River, through West Chelsea's tree-lined blocks and art galleries, and into the heart of the Meat Packing District. Walking the path of this real-time landscape, Sternfeld has created a suite of images in which the landscape is read as both a social and cultural indicator.

Small Town Baltimore: An Album of Memories


Gilbert Sandler - 2002
    Most Baltimoreans would agree that, until recently, living here was like living in a small town. For more than 25 years, Gilbert Sandler chronicled this bygone life of streetcars and cinema palaces in his Evening Sun (and later Sun) column, "Baltimore Glimpses." Now collected, edited, and expanded in Small Town Baltimore, Sandler's delightful sketches of life in Baltimore from the 1920s through the 1970s take readers back to a time when flagpole-sitting was all the rage, when guests at high society weddings and cotillions were fed by the prominent African American business Hughes Catering and chef David Bruce's famous chicken croquettes, and when the salt rubdown at Rowland's Turkish Bath could take all one's troubles away.This "album of memories" introduces the reader to the people and places—neighborhoods, restaurants, department stores, parks, hotels, night clubs, racetracks, and theaters—that once put the charm in Charm City. Sandler recalls the events that shaped life here, from strikes and demonstrations to baseball games and parades. Through interviews and reminiscences, Sandler catches a double feature at the Valencia; visits Howard Street's Arabian Tent Club to listen to Cab Calloway; attends the funeral of Chick Webb—"the greatest jazz drummer in the world"—along with such jazz luminaries as Duke Ellington, Gene Krupa, and Ella Fitzgerald; listens in on Arthur Godfrey's audition in the studios of WFBR; eats knockwurst at Schellhase's, steamed crabs at Bankert's, and Cantonese cuisine at Jimmy Wu's; takes the Chesapeake Restaurant up on its offer to "Eat our steak with a fork, else tear up your check and walk out"; and rides the Charles Street double-decker bus with Ms. Reuben Ross Holloway, who fought to make "The Star-Spangled Banner" our national anthem. Small Town Baltimore shows us how far Baltimore has come and what's been lost in the process.