Best of
New-York

1984

Subway Art


Martha Cooper - 1984
    Two gifted photographers have documented every aspect of this extraordinary urban subculture, complete with 239 full-color photographs.

Bums: An Oral History of the Brooklyn Dodgers


Peter Golenbock - 1984
    Bums narrates the colorful history of this beloved team with recollections from the players, the writers who covered them, and fans.

The Colour of Light


William Goldman - 1984
    But artistic success and happiness will not come easily to Chub Fuller. Like many writers, he will find himself descending again and again into the lower reaches of his psyche, driven by the phantoms of his past, the obsessive passions of others--and finally, by a murder that brings him face to face with the darkest forces within us all ...

Getting Up: Subway Graffiti in New York


Craig Castleman - 1984
    Through candid interviews, New Yorker Craig Castleman documents the inside story of the lives and activities of these young graffitists.

Communists in Harlem during the Depression


Mark Naison - 1984
    Mark Naison describes how the party won the early endorsement of such people as Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and how its support of racial equality and integration impressed black intellectuals, including Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, and Paul Robeson.   This meticulously researched work, largely based on primary materials and interviews with leading black Communists from the 1930s, is the first to fully explore this provocative encounter between whites and blacks. It provides a detailed look at an exciting period of reform, as well as an intimate portrait of Harlem in the 1920s and 30s, at the high point of its influence and pride.

Home Before Dark


Susan Cheever - 1984
    While producing some of the most beloved and celebrated American literature of this century, John Cheever wrestled with personal demons that deeply affected his family life as well as his career. In this poignant memoir of a man driven by boundless genius and ambition, Susan Cheever writes with heartwrenching honesty of family life with the father, the writer, and the remarkable man she loved.

The World According to Breslin


Jimmy Breslin - 1984
    collection of articles from one of America's key columnists features Breslin's commentary on strife in Northern Ireland, politicians, lawyers, street violence, & the death of his wife

The Catskills: From Wilderness to Woodstock, Revised and Updated


Alf Evers - 1984
    Alf Evers evokes the special charm of the Catskills region with explorations of its flora and fauna, legends, superstitions, and natural and unnatural wonders. Packed with illustrations detailing the history of the Catskills from the time of its first settling through the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, the Borcht Belt years, the famed Woodstock festival, up to the present, "The Catskills" is a memorable book that does full justice to a vital vein of our American heritage.

Holdouts!


Andrew Alpern - 1984
    They appear whenever urban densities make land valuable and wherever a profit motive exists to trigger change. Holdouts are often thought of as David versus Goliath battles, but is David the little homeowner who doesn't want to abandon his hearth to the big heartless developer? Or is David the harried builder who has invested huge sums of money in buying up ninety percent of the land needed for development – whose benefits would be enjoyed by thousands of citizens – but whose plans are thwarted by the one landowner who controls the critical land parcel without which the project is doomed?What motivates a holdout? What are the problems when a holdout gets in the way? What impacts do holdouts have on how new buildings are planned and designed? What happens when a new structure has to be constructed next to, around, or even above an existing one that can't be removed? How have holdouts been dealt with over the years?Holdouts! depicts with vivid clarity the colorful personalities and outrageous actions that emerge in these stark confrontations. It describes epic battles that have been fought to erect buildings in New York. More than 200 illustrations and photographs show the holdouts before, during, and after the construction they delayed. This unique pictorial history will delight architecture buffs, New Yorkers, urban historians, indeed anyone interested in the sometimes hectic, sometimes pathetic, and sometimes hilarious struggles of individuals against real estate developers whose projects are so essential to the continuing economic viability of our large cities.