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Vendor
Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English
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TENEMENTS, TOWERS & TRASH

Julia Wertz

An Unconventional Illustrated History of New York City

A perfectly charming, sidesplittingly funny, intellectually entertaining illustrated history of the blocks, the buildings, and the guts of New York City, based on Julia Wertz's popular illustrated columns in The New Yorker and Harper's.
In Tenements, Towers & Trash, Julia Wertz takes us behind the New York that you think you know. Not the tourist's New York - the Statue of Liberty makes a brief appearance and the Empire State Building not at all - but the guts, the underbelly, of this city that never sleeps.
With drawings and comics in her signature style, Wertz regales us with streetscapes "Then and Now" and little-known tales, such as the lost history of Kim's Video, the complicated and unresolved business of Ray's Pizza, the vintage trash and horse bones that litter the shore of Brooklyn's Bottle Beach, the ludicrous pinball prohibition, Staten Island's secret abandoned boatyard, and the hair-raising legend of the infamous abortionist of Fifth Avenue, Madame Restell.
From bars, bakeries, and bookstores to food carts, street cleaners, and apartments both cramped and grand, Tenements, Towers & Trash is a wild ride in a time machine taxi from the present-day city to bygone days of yore.

Julia Wertz is a professional cartoonist and amateur historian. She has published five graphic novels and does monthly history comics for The New Yorker and Harper's Magazine.
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Book

Published 2017-10-03 by Black Dog & Leventhal

Comments

Chinese (simpl.): Zhejiang University Press ; French: L'Agrume ; Korean: ImageFrame ; Spanish: Errata Naturae

...nothing short of extraordinary. The meticulously researched histories of the various urban landscapes are fascinating, and Wertz's drawings perfectly capture the visual poetry of the city.

This is a great gift for the history, design, and illustration obsessives in your life...or a great gift for yourself...

A New York Times Notable Book of 2017: "A passionate anatomy of the city, a book of dramatic streetscapes and hidden histories - mostly of infamous women... the city rises majestically in these pages."

A delight.

[Wertz's] love of [New York] is tangible and moving.

...Wertz captures change as the most important constant trait of New York City, with a vivid eclecticism that makes this an indispensable guidebook to places lost and found.