A Mayor's Life

A Mayor's Life PDF Author: David N Dinkins
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1610393023
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 410

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Book Description
How did a scrawny black kid -- the son of a barber and a domestic who grew up in Harlem and Trenton -- become the 106th mayor of New York City? It's a remarkable journey. David Norman Dinkins was born in 1927, joined the Marine Corps in the waning days of World War II, went to Howard University on the G.I. Bill, graduated cum laude with a degree in mathematics in 1950, and married Joyce Burrows, whose father, Daniel Burrows, had been a state assemblyman well-versed in the workings of New York's political machine. It was his father-in-law who suggested the young mathematician might make an even better politician once he also got his law degree. The political career of David Dinkins is set against the backdrop of the rising influence of a broader demographic in New York politics, including far greater segments of the city's "gorgeous mosaic." After a brief stint as a New York assemblyman, Dinkins was nominated as a deputy mayor by Abe Beame in 1973, but ultimately declined because he had not filed his income tax returns on time. Down but not out, he pursued his dedication to public service, first by serving as city clerk. In 1986, Dinkins was elected Manhattan borough president, and in 1989, he defeated Ed Koch and Rudy Giuliani to become mayor of New York City, the largest American city to elect an African American mayor. As the newly-elected mayor of a city in which crime had risen precipitously in the years prior to his taking office, Dinkins vowed to attack the problems and not the victims. Despite facing a budget deficit, he hired thousands of police officers, more than any other mayoral administration in the twentieth century, and launched the "Safe Streets, Safe City" program, which fundamentally changed how police fought crime. For the first time in decades, crime rates began to fall -- a trend that continues to this day. Among his other major successes, Mayor Dinkins brokered a deal that kept the US Open Tennis Championships in New York -- bringing hundreds of millions of dollars to the city annually -- and launched the revitalization of Times Square after decades of decay, all the while deflecting criticism and some outright racism with a seemingly unflappable demeanor. Criticized by some for his handling of the Crown Heights riots in 1991, Dinkins describes in these pages a very different version of events. A Mayor's Life is a revealing look at a devoted public servant and a New Yorker in love with his city, who led that city during tumultuous times.

A Mayor's Life

A Mayor's Life PDF Author: David N Dinkins
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1610393023
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 410

Get Book Here

Book Description
How did a scrawny black kid -- the son of a barber and a domestic who grew up in Harlem and Trenton -- become the 106th mayor of New York City? It's a remarkable journey. David Norman Dinkins was born in 1927, joined the Marine Corps in the waning days of World War II, went to Howard University on the G.I. Bill, graduated cum laude with a degree in mathematics in 1950, and married Joyce Burrows, whose father, Daniel Burrows, had been a state assemblyman well-versed in the workings of New York's political machine. It was his father-in-law who suggested the young mathematician might make an even better politician once he also got his law degree. The political career of David Dinkins is set against the backdrop of the rising influence of a broader demographic in New York politics, including far greater segments of the city's "gorgeous mosaic." After a brief stint as a New York assemblyman, Dinkins was nominated as a deputy mayor by Abe Beame in 1973, but ultimately declined because he had not filed his income tax returns on time. Down but not out, he pursued his dedication to public service, first by serving as city clerk. In 1986, Dinkins was elected Manhattan borough president, and in 1989, he defeated Ed Koch and Rudy Giuliani to become mayor of New York City, the largest American city to elect an African American mayor. As the newly-elected mayor of a city in which crime had risen precipitously in the years prior to his taking office, Dinkins vowed to attack the problems and not the victims. Despite facing a budget deficit, he hired thousands of police officers, more than any other mayoral administration in the twentieth century, and launched the "Safe Streets, Safe City" program, which fundamentally changed how police fought crime. For the first time in decades, crime rates began to fall -- a trend that continues to this day. Among his other major successes, Mayor Dinkins brokered a deal that kept the US Open Tennis Championships in New York -- bringing hundreds of millions of dollars to the city annually -- and launched the revitalization of Times Square after decades of decay, all the while deflecting criticism and some outright racism with a seemingly unflappable demeanor. Criticized by some for his handling of the Crown Heights riots in 1991, Dinkins describes in these pages a very different version of events. A Mayor's Life is a revealing look at a devoted public servant and a New Yorker in love with his city, who led that city during tumultuous times.

New Yorkers: A City and Its People in Our Time

New Yorkers: A City and Its People in Our Time PDF Author: Craig Taylor
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393242331
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
Winner of the 2021 Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize A symphony of contemporary New York through the magnificent words of its people—from the best-selling author of Londoners. In the first twenty years of the twenty-first century, New York City has been convulsed by terrorist attack, blackout, hurricane, recession, social injustice, and pandemic. New Yorkers weaves the voices of some of the city’s best talkers into an indelible portrait of New York in our time—and a powerful hymn to the vitality and resilience of its people. Best-selling author Craig Taylor has been hailed as “a peerless journalist and a beautiful craftsman” (David Rakoff), acclaimed for the way he “fuses the mundane truth of conversation with the higher truth of art” (Michel Faber). In the wake of his celebrated book Londoners, Taylor moved to New York and spent years meeting regularly with hundreds of New Yorkers as diverse as the city itself. New Yorkers features 75 of the most remarkable of them, their fascinating true tales arranged in thematic sections that follow Taylor’s growing engagement with the city. Here are the uncelebrated people who propel New York each day—bodega cashier, hospital nurse, elevator repairman, emergency dispatcher. Here are those who wire the lights at the top of the Empire State Building, clean the windows of Rockefeller Center, and keep the subway running. Here are people whose experiences reflect the city’s fractured realities: the mother of a Latino teenager jailed at Rikers, a BLM activist in the wake of police shootings. And here are those who capture the ineffable feeling of New York, such as a balloon handler in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade or a security guard at the Statue of Liberty. Vibrant and bursting with life, New Yorkers explores the nonstop hustle to make it; the pressures on new immigrants, people of color, and the poor; the constant battle between loving the city and wanting to leave it; and the question of who gets to be considered a "New Yorker." It captures the strength of an irrepressible city that—no matter what it goes through—dares call itself the greatest in the world.

New Yorks Pennsylvania Stations

New Yorks Pennsylvania Stations PDF Author: Hilary Ballon
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393730784
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
This book recounts the heroic story of a public landmark: the masterpiece by McKim, Mead & White that opened in 1910, its tragic demolition in the 1960s, and the dazzling new station by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, due to open in 2005.".

The Central Park

The Central Park PDF Author: Cynthia S. Brenwall
Publisher: Abrams
ISBN: 1683353188
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 958

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Book Description
A pictorial history of the development of New York City’s Central Park from conception to completion. Drawing on the unparalleled collection of original designs for Central Park in the New York City Municipal Archives, Cynthia S. Brenwall tells the story of the creation of New York’s great public park, from its conception to its completion. This treasure trove of material ranges from the original winning competition entry; to meticulously detailed maps; to plans and elevations of buildings, some built, some unbuilt; to elegant designs for all kinds of fixtures needed in a world of gaslight and horses; to intricate engineering drawings of infrastructure elements. Much of it has never been published before. A virtual time machine that takes the reader on a journey through the park as it was originally envisioned, The Central Park is both a magnificent art book and a message from the past about what brilliant urban planning can do for a great city.

Smarter New York City

Smarter New York City PDF Author: André Corrêa d'Almeida
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231545118
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 458

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Book Description
Innovation is often presented as being in the exclusive domain of the private sector. Yet despite widespread perceptions of public-sector inefficiency, government agencies have much to teach us about how technological and social advances occur. Improving governance at the municipal level is critical to the future of the twenty-first-century city, from environmental sustainability to education, economic development, public health, and beyond. In this age of acceleration and massive migration of people into cities around the world, this book explains how innovation from within city agencies and administrations makes urban systems smarter and shapes life in New York City. Using a series of case studies, Smarter New York City describes the drivers and constraints behind urban innovation, including leadership and organization; networks and interagency collaboration; institutional context; technology and real-time data collection; responsiveness and decision making; and results and impact. Cases include residential organic-waste collection, an NYPD program that identifies the sound of gunshots in real time, and the Vision Zero attempt to end traffic casualties, among others. Challenging the usefulness of a tech-centric view of urban innovation, Smarter New York City brings together a multidisciplinary and integrated perspective to imagine new possibilities from within city agencies, with practical lessons for city officials, urban planners, policy makers, civil society, and potential private-sector partners.

New York’s Yiddish Theater

New York’s Yiddish Theater PDF Author: Edna Nahshon
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231541074
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
In the early decades of the twentieth century, a vibrant theatrical culture took shape on New York City's Lower East Side. Original dramas, comedies, musicals, and vaudeville, along with sophisticated productions of Shakespeare, Ibsen, and Chekhov, were innovatively staged for crowds that rivaled the audiences on Broadway. Though these productions were in Yiddish and catered to Eastern European, Jewish audiences (the largest immigrant group in the city at the time), their artistic innovations, energetic style, and engagement with politics and the world around them came to influence all facets of the American stage. Vividly illustrated and with essays from leading historians and critics, this book recounts the heyday of "Yiddish Broadway" and its vital contribution to American Jewish life and crossover to the broader American culture. These performances grappled with Jewish nationalism, labor relations, women's rights, religious observance, acculturation, and assimilation. They reflected a range of genres, from tear-jerkers to experimental theater. The artists who came of age in this world include Stella Adler, Eddie Cantor, Jerry Lewis, Sophie Tucker, Mel Brooks, and Joan Rivers. The story of New York's Yiddish theater is a tale of creativity and legacy and of immigrants who, in the process of becoming Americans, had an enormous impact on the country's cultural and artistic development.

New York's Bravest

New York's Bravest PDF Author: Shawn O'Sullivan
Publisher: powerHouse Books
ISBN: 9781576871584
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 174

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Book Description
On September 11, the world was made heartbreakingly aware of the risks taken by the New York City Fire Department. But the New York Daily News has been documenting their bravery since 1919. Now, culled from their archive of over 6 million images, this book represents more than eighty years of the FDNY in action: fighting fires, at rest in the station house, training, mourning, protesting and proudly posing for history. A tribute to the dedication, heroism and humanity of the thousands serving in NY, this book is illustrated with 120 colour and b/w photos.

The City That Became Safe

The City That Became Safe PDF Author: Franklin E. Zimring
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199324166
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Discusses many of the ways that New York City dropped its crime rate between the years of 1991 and 2000.

New York's Golden Age of Bridges

New York's Golden Age of Bridges PDF Author:
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
ISBN: 0823253074
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 413

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Book Description
In New York’s Golden Age of Bridges, artist Antonio Masi teams up with writer and New York City historian Joan Marans Dim to offer a multidimensional exploration of New York City’s nine major bridges, their artistic and cultural underpinnings, and their impact worldwide. The tale of New York City’s bridges begins in 1883, when the Brooklyn Bridge rose majestically over the East River, signaling the start of America’s “Golden Age” of bridge building. The Williamsburg followed in 1903, the Queensboro (renamed the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge) and the Manhattan in 1909, the George Washington in 1931, the Triborough (renamed the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge) in 1936, the Bronx-Whitestone in 1939, the Throgs Neck in 1961, and the Verrazano-Narrows in 1964. Each of these classic bridges has its own story, and the book’s paintings show the majesty and artistry, while the essays fill in the fascinating details of its social, cultural, economic, political, and environmental history. America’s great bridges, built almost entirely by immigrant engineers, architects, and laborers, have come to symbolize not only labor and ingenuity but also bravery and sacrifice. The building of each bridge took a human toll. The Brooklyn Bridge’s designer and chief engineer, John A. Roebling, himself died in the service of bridge building. But beyond those stories is another narrative—one that encompasses the dreams and ambitions of a city, and eventually a nation. At this moment in Asia and Europe many modern, largescale, long-span suspension bridges are being built. They are the progeny of New York City’s Golden Age bridges. This book comes along at the perfect moment to place these great public projects into their historical and artistic contexts and to inform and delight artists, engineers, historians, architects, and city planners. In addition to the historical and artistic perspectives, New York’s Golden Age of Bridges explores the inestimable connections that bridges foster, and reveals the extraordinary impact of the nine Golden Age bridges on the city, the nation, and the world.

Murals of New York City

Murals of New York City PDF Author: Glenn Palmer-Smith
Publisher: Rizzoli International Publications
ISBN: 0789347075
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
A celebration of New York City's most treasured public art, now available in a smaller format for a lower price. Whether it's cocktails at the Carlyle, taking in a show at Lincoln Center, traveling via subway, or flying out of LaGuardia's venerable Marine Air Terminal, uptown to downtown to the outer boroughs, the art created for the walls of New York City's bars, hotels, offices, government buildings, and schools have themselves created the identities of the rooms they live in. Murals of New York City was the first book to curate more than thirty of the most important, influential, and impressive murals found within all five boroughs. Full-color images of works such as Paul Helleu's Mural of the Stars on Grand Central Terminal's ceiling, Robert Crowl's Dancers at the Bar at Lincoln Center, Edward Laning's New York Public Library McGraw Rotunda, José Maria Sert and Frank Brangwyn's Rockefeller Center murals, and work by artists such as Marc Chagall, Keith Haring, Roy Lichtenstein, Maxfield Parrish, and more are accompanied by informative and historical commentary. Perfect for art and architecture lovers, Murals of New York City serves as the perfect resource for New Yorkers and souvenir for the millions of tourists who visit the city every year.