The Wpa Guide to New York City

Originally published in 1939 at the time of the World's Fair, this is a reissue of this guide for time-travellers. It offers New York-lovers and 1930s-buffs a look at life as it was lived in the days when a trolley ride cost only a few cents, a room at the Plaza was $7.50, Dodger fans flocked to Ebbetts Field, and the new World's Fair was the talk of the town. The New York of 1939 was a city where adventures began under the clock at the Biltmore, the big liners sailed at midnight, and Times Square was considered the crossroads of the world. In many ways New York is unchanged. The great apartment buildings of the late 1920s and 1930s - the Century, the San Remo, the Majestic - and the Manhattan skyscrapers - the Rockefeller Center, the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building - still stand as sentinels to the past life of the city. Surprisingly, the book can still be used as a guidebook, challenging the contemporary observer to look for traces of a city that is no more.