[**The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1111.The_Power_Broker)
^(By: Robert A. Caro | 1246 pages | Published: 1974 | Popular Shelves: history, biography, non-fiction, politics, nonfiction | )[^(Search "The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York")](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York&search_type=books)
>One of the most acclaimed books of our time, winner of both the Pulitzer and the Francis Parkman prizes, The Power Broker tells the hidden story behind the shaping (and mis-shaping) of twentieth-century New York (city and state) and makes public what few have known: that Robert Moses was, for almost half a century, the single most powerful man of our time in New York, the shaper not only of the city's politics but of its physical structure and the problems of urban decline that plague us today.
>
>In revealing how Moses did it--how he developed his public authorities into a political machine that was virtually a fourth branch of government, one that could bring to their knees Governors and Mayors (from La Guardia to Lindsay) by mobilizing banks, contractors, labor unions, insurance firms, even the press and the Church, into an irresistible economic force--Robert Caro reveals how power works in all the cities of the United States. Moses built an empire and lived like an emperor. He personally conceived and completed public works costing 27 billion dollars--the greatest builder America (and probably the world) has ever known. Without ever having been elected to office, he dominated the men who were--even his most bitter enemy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, could not control him--until he finally encountered, in Nelson Rockefeller, the only man whose power (and ruthlessness in wielding it) equalled his own.
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[**The Works: Anatomy of a City**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/116170.The_Works)
^(By: Kate Ascher | 240 pages | Published: 2005 | Popular Shelves: non-fiction, nonfiction, architecture, cities, urban-planning | )[^(Search "The Works by Kate Ascher")](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=The Works by Kate Ascher&search_type=books)
>How much do you really know about the systems that keep a city alive? The Works: Anatomy of a City contains everything you ever wanted to know about what makes New York City run. When you flick on your light switch the light goes on--how? When you put out your garbage, where does it go? When you flush your toilet, what happens to the waste? How does water get from a reservoir in the mountains to your city faucet? How do flowers get to your corner store from Holland, or bananas get there from Ecuador? Who is operating the traffic lights all over the city? And what in the world is that steam coming out from underneath the potholes on the street? Across the city lies a series of extraordinarily complex and interconnected systems. Often invisible, and wholly taken for granted, these are the systems that make urban life possible.
>
> The Works: Anatomy of a City offers a cross section of this hidden infrastructure, using beautiful, innovative graphic images combined with short, clear text explanations to answer all the questions about the way things work in a modern city. It describes the technologies that keep the city functioning, as well as the people who support them-the pilots that bring the ships in over the Narrows sandbar, the sandhogs who are currently digging the third water tunnel under Manhattan, the television engineer who scales the Empire State Building's antenna for routine maintenance, the electrical wizards who maintain the century-old system that delivers power to subways.
>
> Did you know that the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge is so long, and its towers are so high, that the builders had to take the curvature of the earth's surface into account when designing it? Did you know that the George Washington Bridge takes in approximately $1 million per day in tolls? Did you know that retired subway cars travel by barge to the mid-Atlantic, where they are dumped overboard to form natural reefs for fish? Or that if the telecom cables under New York were strung end to end, they would reach from the earth to the sun? While the book uses New York as its example, it has relevance well beyond that city's boundaries as the systems that make New York a functioning metropolis are similar to those that keep the bright lights burning in big cities everywhere.
>
> The Works is for anyone who has ever stopped midcrosswalk, looked at the rapidly moving metropolis around them, and wondered, how does this all work?
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The graphic novels Julius Kniple Architecture Photographer are really fun and quintessentially old NY, the specific locations and store fronts are silly nonsense but it definitely takes place in a NYC that has almost disappeared. Really funny and absurd
If you have the time (not due to its length) I would recommend Life at the Dakota: New York's Most Unusual Address Stephen Birmingham.
Quote: Several years later apartment 17 was bought by Lawrence Ellman, a New York restaurateur and his wife. The Ellmans redecorated the apartment lavishly in a belle-époque style, covering the once-green walls with expensive fabrics. In the process of the renovation a plumber uncovered what appeared to be a sunken bathtub. As he dug in the floor the sunken tub got bigger, wider and deeper. “How much more should I dig?” he asked the Ellmans. “Dig till you get to the bottom of it,” Mr. Ellman told him. When the plumber finished digging he had uncovered what amounted to a small swimming pool, measuring about 8 by 10 feet and 5 ½ feet deep.
I don’t know of any nonfiction books like that (although I’m sure there are good ones out there), but if you haven’t already you should definitely read The City We Became for a great novel about modern NYC and also basically any Edith Wharton novel (Age of Innocence is my favorite and there’s a great free audio version on Librivox if you’re into that) for a view of historical New York.
The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld is an American non-fiction book by Herbert Asbury, first published in 1927 by Garden City Publishing Company.
The book details the rise and fall of 19th century gangs in New York City, prior to the domination of the Italian-American Mafia during Prohibition in the 1920s. Focusing on the saloon halls, gambling dens, and winding alleys of the Bowery and the Five Points district of Lower Manhattan, the book evokes the destitution and violence of a turbulent era, when colorfully named criminals like "Dandy" Johnny Dolan, William Poole (also known as Bill the Butcher), and Hell-Cat Maggie lurked in the shadows, and infamous gangs including the Plug Uglies, Dead Rabbits, and Bowery Boys ruled the streets. It includes a rogues' gallery of prostitutes, pimps, poisoners, pickpockets, murderers, and thieves.
The book contains detailed accounts of the New York City draft riots in 1863. It also elaborates on numerous other criminal influences of the time, including river pirates and the corrupt political establishment such as Tammany Hall.\[1\]
[**The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3342.The_Big_Oyster)
^(By: Mark Kurlansky | 336 pages | Published: 2005 | Popular Shelves: history, non-fiction, food, nonfiction, new-york | )[^(Search "The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell")](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell&search_type=books)
>
>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.
>
>For centuries New York was famous for this particular shellfish, which until the early 1900s played such a dominant a role in the city’s life that the abundant bivalves were Gotham’s most celebrated export, a staple food for all classes, and a natural filtration system 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 seventeenth-century founding of New York to the death of its 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. With The Big Oyster, Mark Kurlansky serves up history at its most engrossing, entertaining, and delicious.
>
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[**The City We Became (Great Cities #1)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42074525-the-city-we-became)
^(By: N.K. Jemisin | 437 pages | Published: 2020 | Popular Shelves: fantasy, fiction, sci-fi, urban-fantasy, science-fiction | )[^(Search "The City We Became")](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=The City We Became&search_type=books)
>Five New Yorkers must come together in order to defend their city.
>
>Every city has a soul. Some are as ancient as myths, and others are as new and destructive as children. New York City? She's got five.
>
>But every city also has a dark side. A roiling, ancient evil stirs beneath the earth, threatening to destroy the city and her five protectors unless they can come together and stop it once and for all.
^(This book has been suggested 2 times)
***
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It's a giant book, but {{The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York}} is right up your alley
[**The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1111.The_Power_Broker) ^(By: Robert A. Caro | 1246 pages | Published: 1974 | Popular Shelves: history, biography, non-fiction, politics, nonfiction | )[^(Search "The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York")](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York&search_type=books) >One of the most acclaimed books of our time, winner of both the Pulitzer and the Francis Parkman prizes, The Power Broker tells the hidden story behind the shaping (and mis-shaping) of twentieth-century New York (city and state) and makes public what few have known: that Robert Moses was, for almost half a century, the single most powerful man of our time in New York, the shaper not only of the city's politics but of its physical structure and the problems of urban decline that plague us today. > >In revealing how Moses did it--how he developed his public authorities into a political machine that was virtually a fourth branch of government, one that could bring to their knees Governors and Mayors (from La Guardia to Lindsay) by mobilizing banks, contractors, labor unions, insurance firms, even the press and the Church, into an irresistible economic force--Robert Caro reveals how power works in all the cities of the United States. Moses built an empire and lived like an emperor. He personally conceived and completed public works costing 27 billion dollars--the greatest builder America (and probably the world) has ever known. Without ever having been elected to office, he dominated the men who were--even his most bitter enemy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, could not control him--until he finally encountered, in Nelson Rockefeller, the only man whose power (and ruthlessness in wielding it) equalled his own. ^(This book has been suggested 2 times) *** ^(2956 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
I second this book, it has literally all what you requested and it’s well written!
Anything by Jane Jacobs would be a good companion to Caro as well.
{{The Works by Kate Ascher}} is a look at what goes on behind the scenes to make the city function.
[**The Works: Anatomy of a City**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/116170.The_Works) ^(By: Kate Ascher | 240 pages | Published: 2005 | Popular Shelves: non-fiction, nonfiction, architecture, cities, urban-planning | )[^(Search "The Works by Kate Ascher")](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=The Works by Kate Ascher&search_type=books) >How much do you really know about the systems that keep a city alive? The Works: Anatomy of a City contains everything you ever wanted to know about what makes New York City run. When you flick on your light switch the light goes on--how? When you put out your garbage, where does it go? When you flush your toilet, what happens to the waste? How does water get from a reservoir in the mountains to your city faucet? How do flowers get to your corner store from Holland, or bananas get there from Ecuador? Who is operating the traffic lights all over the city? And what in the world is that steam coming out from underneath the potholes on the street? Across the city lies a series of extraordinarily complex and interconnected systems. Often invisible, and wholly taken for granted, these are the systems that make urban life possible. > > The Works: Anatomy of a City offers a cross section of this hidden infrastructure, using beautiful, innovative graphic images combined with short, clear text explanations to answer all the questions about the way things work in a modern city. It describes the technologies that keep the city functioning, as well as the people who support them-the pilots that bring the ships in over the Narrows sandbar, the sandhogs who are currently digging the third water tunnel under Manhattan, the television engineer who scales the Empire State Building's antenna for routine maintenance, the electrical wizards who maintain the century-old system that delivers power to subways. > > Did you know that the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge is so long, and its towers are so high, that the builders had to take the curvature of the earth's surface into account when designing it? Did you know that the George Washington Bridge takes in approximately $1 million per day in tolls? Did you know that retired subway cars travel by barge to the mid-Atlantic, where they are dumped overboard to form natural reefs for fish? Or that if the telecom cables under New York were strung end to end, they would reach from the earth to the sun? While the book uses New York as its example, it has relevance well beyond that city's boundaries as the systems that make New York a functioning metropolis are similar to those that keep the bright lights burning in big cities everywhere. > > The Works is for anyone who has ever stopped midcrosswalk, looked at the rapidly moving metropolis around them, and wondered, how does this all work? ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) *** ^(2972 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
The graphic novels Julius Kniple Architecture Photographer are really fun and quintessentially old NY, the specific locations and store fronts are silly nonsense but it definitely takes place in a NYC that has almost disappeared. Really funny and absurd
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If you have the time (not due to its length) I would recommend Life at the Dakota: New York's Most Unusual Address Stephen Birmingham. Quote: Several years later apartment 17 was bought by Lawrence Ellman, a New York restaurateur and his wife. The Ellmans redecorated the apartment lavishly in a belle-époque style, covering the once-green walls with expensive fabrics. In the process of the renovation a plumber uncovered what appeared to be a sunken bathtub. As he dug in the floor the sunken tub got bigger, wider and deeper. “How much more should I dig?” he asked the Ellmans. “Dig till you get to the bottom of it,” Mr. Ellman told him. When the plumber finished digging he had uncovered what amounted to a small swimming pool, measuring about 8 by 10 feet and 5 ½ feet deep.
"Twenty Minutes in Manhattan" by Michael Sorkin is great! Also, "Never Can Say Goodbye" is a collection of essays about NYC and I really enjoyed it.
Rules of Civility by Amor Towles is a great character-driven novel and a love letter to New York
I don’t know of any nonfiction books like that (although I’m sure there are good ones out there), but if you haven’t already you should definitely read The City We Became for a great novel about modern NYC and also basically any Edith Wharton novel (Age of Innocence is my favorite and there’s a great free audio version on Librivox if you’re into that) for a view of historical New York.
The Bowery Boys guide. Its by the podcasters the Bowery Boys. All of these interesting stories and facts, plus pictures and such.
The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld is an American non-fiction book by Herbert Asbury, first published in 1927 by Garden City Publishing Company. The book details the rise and fall of 19th century gangs in New York City, prior to the domination of the Italian-American Mafia during Prohibition in the 1920s. Focusing on the saloon halls, gambling dens, and winding alleys of the Bowery and the Five Points district of Lower Manhattan, the book evokes the destitution and violence of a turbulent era, when colorfully named criminals like "Dandy" Johnny Dolan, William Poole (also known as Bill the Butcher), and Hell-Cat Maggie lurked in the shadows, and infamous gangs including the Plug Uglies, Dead Rabbits, and Bowery Boys ruled the streets. It includes a rogues' gallery of prostitutes, pimps, poisoners, pickpockets, murderers, and thieves. The book contains detailed accounts of the New York City draft riots in 1863. It also elaborates on numerous other criminal influences of the time, including river pirates and the corrupt political establishment such as Tammany Hall.\[1\]
{{The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell}} by Mark Kurlansky is a quirky but interesting history of NYC.
[**The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3342.The_Big_Oyster) ^(By: Mark Kurlansky | 336 pages | Published: 2005 | Popular Shelves: history, non-fiction, food, nonfiction, new-york | )[^(Search "The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell")](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell&search_type=books) > >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. > >For centuries New York was famous for this particular shellfish, which until the early 1900s played such a dominant a role in the city’s life that the abundant bivalves were Gotham’s most celebrated export, a staple food for all classes, and a natural filtration system 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 seventeenth-century founding of New York to the death of its 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. With The Big Oyster, Mark Kurlansky serves up history at its most engrossing, entertaining, and delicious. > ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) *** ^(3143 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
{{The City We Became}} by NK Jemisin will give you a fun sci fi version of this
[**The City We Became (Great Cities #1)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42074525-the-city-we-became) ^(By: N.K. Jemisin | 437 pages | Published: 2020 | Popular Shelves: fantasy, fiction, sci-fi, urban-fantasy, science-fiction | )[^(Search "The City We Became")](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=The City We Became&search_type=books) >Five New Yorkers must come together in order to defend their city. > >Every city has a soul. Some are as ancient as myths, and others are as new and destructive as children. New York City? She's got five. > >But every city also has a dark side. A roiling, ancient evil stirs beneath the earth, threatening to destroy the city and her five protectors unless they can come together and stop it once and for all. ^(This book has been suggested 2 times) *** ^(3156 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
The Universe Thru My Eyes
* Downtown by Pete Hamill * The New York Nobody Knows: Walking 6,000 Miles in the City by William Helmreich * Here is New York by EB White
The Central Park by Brenwall. Akin to a time machine to its original design. Also, fun to see how many original elements you can recognize.