Manhattan '45

<p>In 1945 New York City stood at the pinnacle of its cultural and economic power. Never again would the city possess the unique mixture of innocence and sophistication romance and formality generosity and confidence that characterized it in this moment of triumph. In Manhattan '45 acclaimed travel writer and historian Jan Morris evokes the city in all its romantic grandeur. From its beguilingly idiosyncratic architectural style to its unmistakable slang postwar New York springs to life through Morris's brisk affectionate prose. Morris visits Wall Street Harlem Greenwich Village Chinatown and the Lower East Side. She rides the trollies the El the Hudson River ferries and the Twentieth Century Limited. She dines at Schrafft's and Le Pavillon drinks ale at McSorley's Saloon sips Manhattans at the Manhattan Club and spots celebrities at El Morocco. She meets Fiorello La Guardia Robert Moses Leo Durocher I. B. Singer and Dizzy Gillespie. She tours the tenements of Hell's Kitchen and the Gashouse district as well as the Foundling Hospital where the crushing realities of poverty belie the unchallenged exuberance of the age. Taking into account both Social Register and slum Manhattan '45 celebrates New York's Golden Age as a time when for one unrepeatable moment in history anything seemed possible.</p>