Stories From Early New York History

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A History of New York in 27 Buildings

Author : Sam Roberts
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 162040981X
Total Pages : 305 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (24 download)

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Book Synopsis A History of New York in 27 Buildings by : Sam Roberts

Download or read book A History of New York in 27 Buildings written by Sam Roberts and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2019-10-22 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the urban affairs correspondent of the New York Times--the story of a city through twenty-seven structures that define it. As New York is poised to celebrate its four hundredth anniversary, New York Times correspondent Sam Roberts tells the story of the city through bricks, glass, wood, and mortar, revealing why and how it evolved into the nation's biggest and most influential. From the seven hundred thousand or so buildings in New York, Roberts selects twenty-seven that, in the past four centuries, have been the most emblematic of the city's economic, social, and political evolution. He describes not only the buildings and how they came to be, but also their enduring impact on the city and its people and how the consequences of the construction often reverberated around the world. A few structures, such as the Empire State Building, are architectural icons, but Roberts goes beyond the familiar with intriguing stories of the personalities and exploits behind the unrivaled skyscraper's construction. Some stretch the definition of buildings, to include the city's oldest bridge and the landmark Coney Island Boardwalk. Others offer surprises: where the United Nations General Assembly first met; a hidden hub of global internet traffic; a nondescript factory that produced billions of dollars of currency in the poorest neighborhood in the country; and the buildings that triggered the Depression and launched the New Deal. With his deep knowledge of the city and penchant for fascinating facts, Roberts brings to light the brilliant architecture, remarkable history, and bright future of the greatest city in the world.

A History of Housing in New York City

Author : Richard Plunz
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780231062978
Total Pages : 470 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (629 download)

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Book Synopsis A History of Housing in New York City by : Richard Plunz

Download or read book A History of Housing in New York City written by Richard Plunz and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 1990 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since its emergence in the mid-nineteenth century as the nation's "metropolis," New York has faced the most challenging housing problems of any American city, but it has also led the nation in innovation and reform. Plunz traces New York's housing development from 1850 to the present, exploring the housing of all classes, discussing the development of types ranging from the single-family house to the high-rise apartment tower.

Greater Gotham

Author : Mike Wallace
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0195116356
Total Pages : 1195 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (951 download)

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Book Synopsis Greater Gotham by : Mike Wallace

Download or read book Greater Gotham written by Mike Wallace and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 1195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Volume two of the world famous trilogy on the history of New York

A History of New York in 101 Objects

Author : Sam Roberts
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1476728801
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (767 download)

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Book Synopsis A History of New York in 101 Objects by : Sam Roberts

Download or read book A History of New York in 101 Objects written by Sam Roberts and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-09-23 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Delightfully surprising….A portable virtual museum…an entertaining stroll through the history of one of the world’s great cities” (Kirkus Reviews), told through 101 distinctive objects that span the history of New York, almost all reproduced in luscious, full color. Inspired by A History of the World in 100 Objects, Sam Roberts of The New York Times chose fifty objects that embody the narrative of New York for a feature article in the paper. Many more suggestions came from readers, and so Roberts has expanded the list to 101. Here are just a few of what this keepsake volume offers: -The Flushing Remonstrance, a 1657 petition for religious freedom that was a precursor to the First Amendment to the Constitution. -Beads from the African Burial Ground, 1700s. Slavery was legal in New York until 1827, although many free blacks lived in the city. The African Burial Ground closed in 1792 and was only recently rediscovered. -The bagel, early 1900s. The quintessential and undisputed New York food (excepting perhaps the pizza). -The Automat vending machine, 1912. Put a nickel in the slot and get a cup of coffee or a piece of pie. It was the early twentieth century version of fast food. -The “I Love NY” logo designed by Milton Glaser in 1977 for a campaign to increase tourism. Along with Saul Steinberg’s famous New Yorker cover depicting a New Yorker’s view of the world, it was perhaps the most famous and most frequently reproduced graphic symbol of the time. Unique, sometimes whimsical, always important, A History of New York in 101 Objects is a beautiful chronicle of the remarkable history of the Big Apple. “The story [Sam Roberts] is telling is that of New York, and he nails it” (Daily News, New York).

The Island at the Center of the World

Author : Russell Shorto
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 1400096332
Total Pages : 418 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis The Island at the Center of the World by : Russell Shorto

Download or read book The Island at the Center of the World written by Russell Shorto and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2005-04-12 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a riveting, groundbreaking narrative, Russell Shorto tells the story of New Netherland, the Dutch colony which pre-dated the Pilgrims and established ideals of tolerance and individual rights that shaped American history. "Astonishing . . . A book that will permanently alter the way we regard our collective past." --The New York Times When the British wrested New Amsterdam from the Dutch in 1664, the truth about its thriving, polyglot society began to disappear into myths about an island purchased for 24 dollars and a cartoonish peg-legged governor. But the story of the Dutch colony of New Netherland was merely lost, not destroyed: 12,000 pages of its records–recently declared a national treasure–are now being translated. Russell Shorto draws on this remarkable archive in The Island at the Center of the World, which has been hailed by The New York Times as “a book that will permanently alter the way we regard our collective past.” The Dutch colony pre-dated the “original” thirteen colonies, yet it seems strikingly familiar. Its capital was cosmopolitan and multi-ethnic, and its citizens valued free trade, individual rights, and religious freedom. Their champion was a progressive, young lawyer named Adriaen van der Donck, who emerges in these pages as a forgotten American patriot and whose political vision brought him into conflict with Peter Stuyvesant, the autocratic director of the Dutch colony. The struggle between these two strong-willed men laid the foundation for New York City and helped shape American culture. The Island at the Center of the World uncovers a lost world and offers a surprising new perspective on our own.

The Wheels That Drove New York

Author : Roger P. Roess
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 3642304842
Total Pages : 441 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (423 download)

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Book Synopsis The Wheels That Drove New York by : Roger P. Roess

Download or read book The Wheels That Drove New York written by Roger P. Roess and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-08-23 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Wheels That Drove New York tells the fascinating story of how a public transportation system helped transform a small trading community on the southern tip of Manhattan island to a world financial capital that is home to more than 8,000,000 people. From the earliest days of horse-drawn conveyances to the wonders of one of the world's largest and most efficient subways, the story links the developing history of the City itself to the growth and development of its public transit system. Along the way, the key role of played by the inventors, builders, financiers, and managers of the system are highlighted. New York began as a fur trading outpost run by the Dutch West India Company, established after the discovery and exploration of New York Harbor and its great river by Henry Hudson. It was eventually taken over by the British, and the magnificent harbor provided for a growing center of trade. Trade spurred industry, initially those needed to support the shipping industry, later spreading to various products for export. When DeWitt Clinton built the Erie Canal, which linked New York Harbor to the Great Lakes, New York became the center of trade for all products moving into and out of the mid-west. As industry grew, New York became a magnate for immigrants seeking refuge in a new land of opportunity. The City's population continued to expand. Both water and land barriers, however, forced virtually the entire population to live south of what is now 14th Street. Densities grew dangerously, and brought both disease and conflict to the poorer quarters of the Five Towns. To expand, the City needed to conquer land and water barriers, primarily with a public transportation system. By the time of the Civil War, the City was at a breaking point. The horse-drawn public conveyances that had provided all of the public transportation services since the 1820's needed to be replaced with something more effective and efficient. First came the elevated railroads, initially powered by steam engines. With the invention of electricity and the electric traction motor, the elevated's were electrified, and a trolley system emerged. Finally, in 1904, the City opened its first subway. From there, the City's growth to northern Manhattan and to the "outer boroughs" of Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx exploded. The Wheels That Drove New York takes us through the present day, and discusses the many challenges that the transit system has had to face over the years. It also traces the conversion of the system from fully private operations (through the elevated railways) to the fully public system that exists today, and the problems that this transformation has created along the way.

Mannahatta

Author : Eric W. Sanderson
Publisher : Abrams
ISBN 13 : 1613125739
Total Pages : 663 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (131 download)

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Book Synopsis Mannahatta by : Eric W. Sanderson

Download or read book Mannahatta written by Eric W. Sanderson and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2013-11-27 with total page 663 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What did New York look like four centuries ago? An extraordinary reconstruction of a wild island from the forests of Times Square to the wetlands downtown. Named a Best Book of the Year by Library Journal, New York Magazine, and San Francisco Chronicle On September 12, 1609, Henry Hudson first set foot on the land that would become Manhattan. Today, it’s difficult to imagine what he saw, but for more than a decade, landscape ecologist Eric Sanderson has been working to do just that. Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York City is the astounding result of those efforts, reconstructing in words and images the wild island that millions now call home. By geographically matching an eighteenth-century map with one of the modern city, examining volumes of historic documents, and collecting and analyzing scientific data, Sanderson re-creates topography, flora, and fauna from a time when actual wolves prowled far beyond Wall Street and the degree of biological diversity rivaled that of our most famous national parks. His lively text guides you through this abundant landscape—while breathtaking illustrations transport you back in time. Mannahatta is a groundbreaking work that provides not only a window into the past, but also inspiration for the future. “[A] wise and beautiful book, sure to enthrall anyone interested in NYC history.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “A cartographical detective tale . . . The fact-intense charts, maps and tables offered in abundance here are fascinating.” —The New York Times “[An] exuberantly written and beautifully illustrated exploration of pre-European Gotham.” —San Francisco Chronicle “You don’t have to be a New Yorker to be enthralled.” —Library Journal

The Big Oyster

Author : Mark Kurlansky
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 1588365913
Total Pages : 338 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (883 download)

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Book Synopsis The Big Oyster by : Mark Kurlansky

Download or read book The Big Oyster written by Mark Kurlansky and published by Random House. This book was released on 2007-01-09 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Before New York City was the Big Apple, it could have been called the Big Oyster. Now award-winning author Mark Kurlansky tells the remarkable story of New York by following the trajectory of one of its most fascinating inhabitants–the oyster, whose influence on the great metropolis remains unparalleled. For centuries New York was famous for its oysters, which until the early 1900s played such a dominant a role in the city’s economy, gastronomy, and ecology that the abundant bivalves were Gotham’s most celebrated export, a staple food for the wealthy, the poor, and tourists alike, and the primary natural defense against pollution for the city’s congested waterways. Filled with cultural, historical, and culinary insight–along with historic recipes, maps, drawings, and photos–this dynamic narrative sweeps readers from the island hunting ground of the Lenape Indians to the death of the oyster beds and the rise of America’s environmentalist movement, from the oyster cellars of the rough-and-tumble Five Points slums to Manhattan’s Gilded Age dining chambers. Kurlansky brings characters vividly to life while recounting dramatic incidents that changed the course of New York history. Here are the stories behind Peter Stuyvesant’s peg leg and Robert Fulton’s “Folly”; the oyster merchant and pioneering African American leader Thomas Downing; the birth of the business lunch at Delmonico’s; early feminist Fanny Fern, one of the highest-paid newspaper writers in the city; even “Diamond” Jim Brady, who we discover was not the gourmand of popular legend. With The Big Oyster, Mark Kurlansky serves up history at its most engrossing, entertaining, and delicious.

Names of New York

Author : Joshua Jelly-Schapiro
Publisher : Pantheon
ISBN 13 : 1524748927
Total Pages : 257 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (247 download)

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Book Synopsis Names of New York by : Joshua Jelly-Schapiro

Download or read book Names of New York written by Joshua Jelly-Schapiro and published by Pantheon. This book was released on 2021-04-13 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A casually wondrous experience; it made me feel like the city was unfolding beneath my feet.” —Jia Tolentino, author of Trick Mirror In place-names lie stories. That’s the truth that animates this fascinating journey through the names of New York City’s streets and parks, boroughs and bridges, playgrounds and neighborhoods. Exploring the power of naming to shape experience and our sense of place, Joshua Jelly-Schapiro traces the ways in which native Lenape, Dutch settlers, British invaders, and successive waves of immigrants have left their marks on the city’s map. He excavates the roots of many names, from Brooklyn to Harlem, that have gained iconic meaning worldwide. He interviews the last living speakers of Lenape, visits the harbor’s forgotten islands, lingers on street corners named for ballplayers and saints, and meets linguists who study the estimated eight hundred languages now spoken in New York. As recent arrivals continue to find new ways to make New York’s neighborhoods their own, the names that stick to the city’s streets function not only as portals to explore the past but also as a means to reimagine what is possible now.

These Truths: A History of the United States

Author : Jill Lepore
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393635252
Total Pages : 733 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (936 download)

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Book Synopsis These Truths: A History of the United States by : Jill Lepore

Download or read book These Truths: A History of the United States written by Jill Lepore and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2018-09-18 with total page 733 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Nothing short of a masterpiece.” —NPR Books A New York Times Bestseller and a Washington Post Notable Book of the Year In the most ambitious one-volume American history in decades, award-winning historian Jill Lepore offers a magisterial account of the origins and rise of a divided nation. Widely hailed for its “sweeping, sobering account of the American past” (New York Times Book Review), Jill Lepore’s one-volume history of America places truth itself—a devotion to facts, proof, and evidence—at the center of the nation’s history. The American experiment rests on three ideas—“these truths,” Jefferson called them—political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people. But has the nation, and democracy itself, delivered on that promise? These Truths tells this uniquely American story, beginning in 1492, asking whether the course of events over more than five centuries has proven the nation’s truths, or belied them. To answer that question, Lepore wrestles with the state of American politics, the legacy of slavery, the persistence of inequality, and the nature of technological change. “A nation born in contradiction… will fight, forever, over the meaning of its history,” Lepore writes, but engaging in that struggle by studying the past is part of the work of citizenship. With These Truths, Lepore has produced a book that will shape our view of American history for decades to come.

Activist New York

Author : Steven H. Jaffe
Publisher : NYU Press
ISBN 13 : 1479804606
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (798 download)

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Book Synopsis Activist New York by : Steven H. Jaffe

Download or read book Activist New York written by Steven H. Jaffe and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2018-05 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Activist New York surveys New York City's long history of social activism from the 1650's to the 2010's. Bringing these passionate histories alive, Activist New York is a visual exploration of these movements, serving as a companion book to the highly-praised Museum of the City of New York exhibition of the same name. New York's primacy as a metropolis of commerce, finance, industry, media, and ethnic diversity has given it a unique and powerfully influential role in the history of American and global activism. Steven H. Jaffe explores how New York's evolving identities as an incubator and battleground for activists have made it a "machine for change." In responding to the city as a site of slavery, immigrant entry, labor conflicts, and wealth disparity, New Yorkers have repeatedly challenged the status quo. Activist New York brings to life the characters who make up these vibrant histories, including David Ruggles, an African American shopkeeper who helped enslaved fugitives on the city's Underground Railroad during the 1830s; Clara Lemlich, a Ukrainian Jewish immigrant who helped spark the 1909 "Uprising of 20,000" that forever changed labor relations in the city's booming garment industry; and Craig Rodwell, Karla Jay, and others who forged a Gay Liberation movement both before and after the Stonewall Riot of June 1969. Permanent exhibition: Puffin Foundation Gallery, Museum of the City of New York, USA.

City of Dreams

Author : Tyler Anbinder
Publisher : HarperCollins
ISBN 13 : 0544103858
Total Pages : 771 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (441 download)

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Book Synopsis City of Dreams by : Tyler Anbinder

Download or read book City of Dreams written by Tyler Anbinder and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2016-10-18 with total page 771 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This sweeping history of New York’s millions of immigrants, both famous and forgotten, is “told brilliantly [and] unforgettably” (The Boston Globe). Written by an acclaimed historian and including maps and photos, this is the story of the peoples who have come to New York for four centuries: an American story of millions of immigrants, hundreds of languages, and one great city. Growing from Peter Minuit’s tiny settlement of 1626 to a clamorous metropolis with more than three million immigrants today, the city has always been a magnet for transplants from around the globe. City of Dreams is the long-overdue, inspiring, and defining account of the young man from the Caribbean who relocated to New York and became a founding father; Russian-born Emma Goldman, who condoned the murder of American industrialists as a means of aiding downtrodden workers; Dominican immigrant Oscar de la Renta, who dressed first ladies from Jackie Kennedy to Michelle Obama; and so many more. Over ten years in the making, Tyler Anbinder’s story is one of innovators and artists, revolutionaries and rioters, staggering deprivation and soaring triumphs. In so many ways, today’s immigrants are just like those who came to America in centuries past—and their stories have never before been told with such breadth of scope, lavish research, and resounding spirit. “Anbinder is a master at taking a history with which many readers will be familiar—tenement houses, temperance societies, slums—and making it new, strange, and heartbreakingly vivid. The stories of individuals, including those of the entrepreneurial Steinway brothers and the tragic poet Pasquale D’Angelo, are undeniably compelling, but it’s Anbinder’s stunning image of New York as a true city of immigrants that captures the imagination.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Broadway: A History of New York City in Thirteen Miles

Author : Fran Leadon
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393285456
Total Pages : 495 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (932 download)

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Book Synopsis Broadway: A History of New York City in Thirteen Miles by : Fran Leadon

Download or read book Broadway: A History of New York City in Thirteen Miles written by Fran Leadon and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2018-04-17 with total page 495 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Part lively social history, part architectural survey, here is the story of Broadway—from 17th-century cow path to Great White Way.”—Geoff Wisner, Wall Street Journal From Bowling Green all the way to Marble Hill, Fran Leadon takes us on a mile-by-mile journey up America’s most vibrant and complex thoroughfare, through the history at the heart of Manhattan. Broadway traces the physical and social transformation of an avenue that has been both the “Path of Progress” and a “street of broken dreams,” home to both parades and riots, startling wealth and appalling destitution. Glamorous, complex, and sometimes troubling, the evolution of an oft-flooded dead end to a canyon of steel and glass is the story of American progress.

Brooklyn

Author : Thomas J. Campanella
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691208611
Total Pages : 551 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (912 download)

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Book Synopsis Brooklyn by : Thomas J. Campanella

Download or read book Brooklyn written by Thomas J. Campanella and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-08-18 with total page 551 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A major new history of Brooklyn, told through its landscapes, buildings, and the people who made them, from the early 17th century to today.

Upper West Side Story

Author : Peter Salwen
Publisher : Peter Salwen
ISBN 13 : 9780896598942
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (989 download)

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Book Synopsis Upper West Side Story by : Peter Salwen

Download or read book Upper West Side Story written by Peter Salwen and published by Peter Salwen. This book was released on 1989 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "As any resident, restaurateur, or realtor will tell you, New York's Upper West Side--that swath of Manhattan between Central Park and the Hudson River, from roughly Columbus Circle to Columbia University--is the place for fashionable dining, dwelling, and dressing up. But the Young Urban Professionals now discovering the area (and many oldtimers, too) might be surprised to learn that other colonists had preceded them by two or three hundred years--Dutch farmers and English gentry with names like Theunis Idens van Huys, Hendrick Hendrickon Bosch, Charles Ward Apthorpe, and Oliver De Lancey. The names of many later residents are more familiar: Edgar Allan Poe, William Tecumseh Sherman, Lillian Russell, Diamond Jim Brady, Florenz Ziegfeld, Arturo Toscanini, Fanny Brice, William Randolph Hearst, Theodore Dreiser, Lewis Mumford, Humphrey Bogart (he was a child there), Lauren Bacall (so was she), Gertrude Stein, Mae West, Leonard Bernstein, John Lennon. Quite a neighborhood. And Peter Salwen’s Upper West Side Story is quite a book: an engaging, often hilarious history of this fabulous city-within-a-city. It is a treasury of colorful biographies--of farmers, tycoons, thieves, and artists. It is an architectural grand tour--of the Dakota, the Ansonia, Lincoln Center, and the romantic residential skyscrapers of Central Park West. It is a compendium of Manhattan lore and delightful as well as occasionally horrifying trivia, enough to turn even a casual browser into the Compleat Upper West Sider. The story of this dynamic neighborhood begins with the colonial period, when merchant princes commanded royal views of the Hudson--until the approach of Washington’s troops drove them from their mansions--and continues through the bucolic nineteenth century, when the Bloomingdale Lunatic Asylum at 116th and Broadway (site of today's Columbia University) was the Upper West Side's prime tourist attraction. By the turn of the [twentieth] century, the fashionable “West End," as the neighborhood was then known, boasted extravagant mansions and private homes, grand parks and equestrian boulevards, and its own unique theatrical and night life. Author Peter Salwen chronicles those high-living years, and the half century of inexorable decline that followed--with its poverty and often sensational crime--and brings us up-to-date with a lively account of [the 1980s'] galloping renaissance. [This book] is living history--an unfinished story--generously illustrated with vintage engravings and photos of the buildings and people great and humble (those still with us and those that are no more). Also included are special walking tours to suit all levels of ambition and energy, and a who’s who of famous and infamous residents and where they lived."--Dust jacket.

Dutch New York

Author : Roger G. Panetta
Publisher : Fordham University Press
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 528 pages
Book Rating : 4.F/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis Dutch New York by : Roger G. Panetta

Download or read book Dutch New York written by Roger G. Panetta and published by Fordham University Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Published in conjunction with the exhibition Dutch New York: the roots of Hudson Valley culture, organized by the Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, June 13, 2009 through January 10, 2010"--T.p. verso.

American Eden: David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic

Author : Victoria Johnson
Publisher : Liveright Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1631494201
Total Pages : 485 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (314 download)

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Book Synopsis American Eden: David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic by : Victoria Johnson

Download or read book American Eden: David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic written by Victoria Johnson and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2018-06-05 with total page 485 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Finalist for the 2018 National Book Award for Nonfiction A New York Times Editors' Choice Selection The untold story of Hamilton’s—and Burr’s—personal physician, whose dream to build America’s first botanical garden inspired the young Republic. On a clear morning in July 1804, Alexander Hamilton stepped onto a boat at the edge of the Hudson River. He was bound for a New Jersey dueling ground to settle his bitter dispute with Aaron Burr. Hamilton took just two men with him: his “second” for the duel, and Dr. David Hosack. As historian Victoria Johnson reveals in her groundbreaking biography, Hosack was one of the few points the duelists did agree on. Summoned that morning because of his role as the beloved Hamilton family doctor, he was also a close friend of Burr. A brilliant surgeon and a world-class botanist, Hosack—who until now has been lost in the fog of history—was a pioneering thinker who shaped a young nation. Born in New York City, he was educated in Europe and returned to America inspired by his newfound knowledge. He assembled a plant collection so spectacular and diverse that it amazes botanists today, conducted some of the first pharmaceutical research in the United States, and introduced new surgeries to America. His tireless work championing public health and science earned him national fame and praise from the likes of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander von Humboldt, and the Marquis de Lafayette. One goal drove Hosack above all others: to build the Republic’s first botanical garden. Despite innumerable obstacles and near-constant resistance, Hosack triumphed when, by 1810, his Elgin Botanic Garden at last crowned twenty acres of Manhattan farmland. “Where others saw real estate and power, Hosack saw the landscape as a pharmacopoeia able to bring medicine into the modern age” (Eric W. Sanderson, author of Mannahatta). Today what remains of America’s first botanical garden lies in the heart of midtown, buried beneath Rockefeller Center. Whether collecting specimens along the banks of the Hudson River, lecturing before a class of rapt medical students, or breaking the fever of a young Philip Hamilton, David Hosack was an American visionary who has been too long forgotten. Alongside other towering figures of the post-Revolutionary generation, he took the reins of a nation. In unearthing the dramatic story of his life, Johnson offers a lush depiction of the man who gave a new voice to the powers and perils of nature.