A Century Downtown

A Century Downtown PDF Author: Matt Kapp
Publisher: powerHouse Books
ISBN: 9781576879443
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Showcasing an unprecedented array of photographs, paintings, renderings, drawings, and other images culled from dozens of archives and individual collections worldwide, A Century Downtown ensures that no one will ever forget the vast and varied history of this famous part of New York City. Catchphrases like "urban renewal" have a nice ring to them, but none measure up to the tectonic, often brutal metamorphoses that have remade Lower Manhattan over the last century. Downtown's defining cataclysmic event is undeniably 9/11. Yet we often forget that the original World Trade Center grew out of the wholesale demolition of an entire neighborhood, home to more than 300 electronics businesses employing some 30,000 workers. We forget that the first "worst terrorist attack in American history"-the Wall Street bombing of 1920-claimed 38 lives and triggered a tsunami of anti-immigrant sentiment that swept Warren G. Harding into the White House. We forget that Washington Street was once home to the biggest Arab-American community in the country, known as Little Syria, eventually displaced by the transportation appetite of a burgeoning suburbia. A Century Downtown raises these and other pivotal events-some mere footnotes to the city's official history-into sharp relief. It's a remarkable visual journey guided by a fascinating historical narrative that sheds new light on the evolution of Lower Manhattan over the past hundred years.

A Century Downtown

A Century Downtown PDF Author: Matt Kapp
Publisher: powerHouse Books
ISBN: 9781576879443
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
Showcasing an unprecedented array of photographs, paintings, renderings, drawings, and other images culled from dozens of archives and individual collections worldwide, A Century Downtown ensures that no one will ever forget the vast and varied history of this famous part of New York City. Catchphrases like "urban renewal" have a nice ring to them, but none measure up to the tectonic, often brutal metamorphoses that have remade Lower Manhattan over the last century. Downtown's defining cataclysmic event is undeniably 9/11. Yet we often forget that the original World Trade Center grew out of the wholesale demolition of an entire neighborhood, home to more than 300 electronics businesses employing some 30,000 workers. We forget that the first "worst terrorist attack in American history"-the Wall Street bombing of 1920-claimed 38 lives and triggered a tsunami of anti-immigrant sentiment that swept Warren G. Harding into the White House. We forget that Washington Street was once home to the biggest Arab-American community in the country, known as Little Syria, eventually displaced by the transportation appetite of a burgeoning suburbia. A Century Downtown raises these and other pivotal events-some mere footnotes to the city's official history-into sharp relief. It's a remarkable visual journey guided by a fascinating historical narrative that sheds new light on the evolution of Lower Manhattan over the past hundred years.

Downtown

Downtown PDF Author: Robert M. Fogelson
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300098278
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 505

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Book Description
Annotation Downtown is the first history of what was once viewed as the heart of the American city. Urban historian Robert Fogelson gives a riveting account of how downtown--and the way Americans thought about it--changed between 1880 and 1950. Recreating battles over subways and skyscrapers, the introduction of elevated highways and parking bans, and other controversies, this book provides a new and often starling perspective on downtown's rise and fall.

Downtown America

Downtown America PDF Author: Alison Isenberg
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226385094
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 462

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Book Description
Downtown America was once the vibrant urban center romanticized in the Petula Clark song—a place where the lights were brighter, where people went to spend their money and forget their worries. But in the second half of the twentieth century, "downtown" became a shadow of its former self, succumbing to economic competition and commercial decline. And the death of Main Streets across the country came to be seen as sadly inexorable, like the passing of an aged loved one. Downtown America cuts beneath the archetypal story of downtown's rise and fall and offers a dynamic new story of urban development in the United States. Moving beyond conventional narratives, Alison Isenberg shows that downtown's trajectory was not dictated by inevitable free market forces or natural life-and-death cycles. Instead, it was the product of human actors—the contested creation of retailers, developers, government leaders, architects, and planners, as well as political activists, consumers, civic clubs, real estate appraisers, even postcard artists. Throughout the twentieth century, conflicts over downtown's mundane conditions—what it should look like and who should walk its streets—pointed to fundamental disagreements over American values. Isenberg reveals how the innovative efforts of these participants infused Main Street with its resonant symbolism, while still accounting for pervasive uncertainty and fears of decline. Readers of this work will find anything but a story of inevitability. Even some of the downtown's darkest moments—the Great Depression's collapse in land values, the rioting and looting of the 1960s, or abandonment and vacancy during the 1970s—illuminate how core cultural values have animated and intertwined with economic investment to reinvent the physical form and social experiences of urban commerce. Downtown America—its empty stores, revitalized marketplaces, and romanticized past—will never look quite the same again. A book that does away with our most clichéd approaches to urban studies, Downtown America will appeal to readers interested in the history of the United States and the mythology surrounding its most cherished institutions. A Choice Oustanding Academic Title. Winner of the 2005 Ellis W. Hawley Prize from the Organization of American Historians. Winner of the 2005 Lewis Mumford Prize for Best Book in American Planning History. Winner of the 2005 Historic Preservation Book Price from the University of Mary Washington Center for Historic Preservation. Named 2005 Honor Book from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities.

Downtown Providence in the Twentieth Century

Downtown Providence in the Twentieth Century PDF Author: Joe Fuoco
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 9780738590455
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 132

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Book Description
The twentieth century can truly be said to have been America's century. As the nation reached the position of world leader, her towns and cities changed at an unprecedented pace. With the approach to the millennium, the topic of change is on everyone's mind--how our communities and lifestyles have changed over the past century, and how we can endeavor to preserve the past while facing the future in which the world seems to change ever faster.

The Heart of the City

The Heart of the City PDF Author: Alexander Garvin
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1610919491
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
Downtowns are more than economic engines: they are repositories of knowledge and culture and generators of new ideas, technology, and ventures. They are the heart of the city that drives its future. If we are to have healthy downtowns, we need to understand what downtown is all about; how and why some American downtowns never stopped thriving (such as San Jose and Houston), some have been in decline for half a century (including Detroit and St. Louis), and still others are resurging after temporary decline (many, including Lower Manhattan and Los Angeles). The downtowns that are prospering are those that more easily adapt to changing needs and lifestyles. In The Heart of the City, distinguished urban planner Alexander Garvin shares lessons on how to plan for a mix of housing, businesses, and attractions; enhance the public realm; improve mobility; and successfully manage downtown services. Garvin opens the book with diagnoses of downtowns across the United States, including the people, businesses, institutions, and public agencies implementing changes. In a review of prescriptions and treatments for any downtown, Garvin shares brief accounts—of both successes and failures—of what individuals with very different objectives have done to change their downtowns. The final chapters look at what is possible for downtowns in the future, closing with suggested national, state, and local legislation to create standard downtown business improvement districts to better manage downtowns. This book will help public officials, civic organizations, downtown business property owners, and people who care about cities learn from successful recent actions in downtowns across the country, and expand opportunities facing their downtown. Garvin provides recommendations for continuing actions to help any downtown thrive, ensuring a prosperous and thrilling future for the 21st-century American city.

Twentieth Century Retailing in Downtown Detroit

Twentieth Century Retailing in Downtown Detroit PDF Author: Michael Hauser
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 9780738561905
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 132

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Book Description
As Detroit developed northward from the riverfront, Woodward Avenue became a mecca for retail, restaurants, and services. The 1870s and 1880s saw many independent merchants open their doors. By 1890, a new type of one-stop shopping had developed: the department store. Detroit's venerable Newcomb Endicott and Company was closely followed by other trailblazers: J. L. Hudson Company, Crowley Milner and Company, and the Ernst Kern Company. At its peak in the 1950s, the Woodward Avenue area boasted over four million square feet of retail, making it one of America's preferred retail destinations. Other Detroit emporiums such as the homegrown S. S. Kresge Company set trends in consumer culture. Generations made the trek downtown for back-to-school events, Easter shows, holiday windows, and family luncheons. Then, with the advent of suburban shopping centers, downtown stores began competing with their own branch locations. By the 1970s and 1980s, the dominoes began to fall as both chain and independent stores abandoned the once prosperous Woodward Avenue.

20th-Century Retailing in Downtown Grand Rapids

20th-Century Retailing in Downtown Grand Rapids PDF Author: Michael Hauser and Marianne Weldon
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1467112569
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 128

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Book Description
Grand Rapids, Michigan was the center for shopping in western Michigan with department stores, five-and-dimes and more, until the advent of the shopping mall. For decades, downtown Grand Rapids enjoyed a long run in the limelight as the epicenter of shopping in western Michigan. The vibrant Monroe Avenue corridor included three homegrown department stores, several chain department stores, five-and-dime stores, and scores of clothing and specialty retailers. It weathered mother nature, wars, the Great Depression, the advent of neighborhood shopping centers, and civil disturbances--but the one change it could not overcome was the regional shopping mall.

Urban Design Downtown

Urban Design Downtown PDF Author: Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520919327
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
The corporate downtown, with its multitude of social dilemmas and contradictions, is the focus of this well-illustrated volume. How are downtown projects conceived, scripted, produced, packaged, and used, and how has all this changed during the twentieth century? The authors of Urban Design Downtown offer a critical appraisal of the emerging appearance of downtown urban form. They explore both the poetics of design and the politics and economics of development decisions. Following a historical review of the various phases of downtown transformation, Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris and Tridib Banerjee turn to contemporary American downtowns. They examine the phenomenon of public-space privatization, arguing that corporate open spaces are the consumer-oriented result of policies that have promoted downtown renovation and restructuring but at the same time have neglected the cities' existing poverty-stricken cores. The book's case studies of individual West Coast downtown projects capture the essence of late twentieth-century urbanism. This analysis of downtown urban America, which offers extensive insight into the design and development process, will interest architects, city planners, developers, and urban designers everywhere.

Downtown Minneapolis

Downtown Minneapolis PDF Author: Iric Nathanson
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1439659273
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
Downtown Minneapolis evolved from a collection of modest frame buildings on the banks of the Mississippi River to the high-rise center of a modern American metropolis. With a burgeoning milling industry powering the local economy, the early frame structures soon gave way to substantial brick and masonry buildings, lining the streets of a bustling 19th-century commercial district. Downtown continued to prosper during the early years of the 20th century, aided by advances in transportation and communications. The heart of the city held its own during the Great Depression and World War II, but the postwar era brought new challenges as a suburban boom threatened the city's economic foundation. Enterprising local leaders responded with innovative developments to meet these challenges, and a reinvigorated downtown took on a new role as the site of a dynamic new residential community, now home to nearly 40,000 city residents.

Vanished Downtown Hartford

Vanished Downtown Hartford PDF Author: Daniel Sterner
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1614239339
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 211

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Book Description
Early nineteenth-century illustrations of Hartford, Connecticut, show church steeples towering over the Victorian homes and brownstone facades of businesses around them. The modern skyline of the town has lost many of these elegant steeples and their quaint and smaller neighbors. Banks have yielded to newer banks, and organizations like the YMCA are now parking lots. In the 1960s, Constitution Plaza replaced an entire neighborhood on Hartford's east side. The city has evolved in the name of progress, allowing treasured buildings to pass into history. Those buildings that survive have been repurposed--the Old State House, built in 1796, is one of the oldest and has found new life as a museum. Yet the memory of these bygone landmarks and scenes has not been lost. Historian Daniel Sterner recalls the lost face of downtown and preserves the historic landmarks that still remain with this nostalgic exploration of Hartford's structural evolution.