Imagining New York City

Using examples from architecture film literature and the visual arts this wide-ranging book examines the place and significance of New York City in the urban imaginary between 1890 and 1940. In particular Imagining New York City considers how and why certain city spaces - such as the skyline the sidewalk the slum and the subway - have come to emblematize key aspects of the modern urban condition. In so doing the book also considers the ways in which cultural developments in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries set the stage for more recent responses to a variety of urban challenges facing the city such as post-disaster recovery the renewal of urban infrastructure and the remaking of public space.