Kate Ascher

For whatever reasons, I find myself fascinated by the history and workings of elevators, so I would recommend this book based just on the elevator chapter. Overall, though, it's an excellent and interesting book, especially as it addresses how ever-taller skyscrapers require new solutions to all aspects of construction and maintenance. (E.g., how do you clean a skyscraper that's too tall for human window washers?)

This book is intended for an adult audience, but I think that even young show more children who are interested in construction would love looking at the pictures. show less

Fun and broad look into various infrastructural systems of NYC, with beautiful illustrations. Pretty inspirational in terms of "wow, there's a lot of cool, complex, and meaningful systems I could be working on!" Sometimes the explanations get a little muddled or the numbers don't quite make sense but I'm willing to overlook that as the broad strokes seem fine. It does feel slightly outdated - left me wondering what the current state of all these systems is.

Overall definitely worth the time show more - there's a lot in here and it is really a quick read. show less

A very interesting look into what makes a big city (New York) work. It was written in 2005, so some sections (e.g., about WiFi) are pretty dated, and some projects described as being planned have either happened or been cancelled by now. But still informative and enjoyable.

Interesting guidebook to the physical structures that keep a great city -- in this case, New York -- moving and talking and consuming and clean, fed, and watered. The author uses very clear diagrams to explain the city's transport, power, communications, and sanitation grids. It underlines the fact that modern urbanites are totally dependent on a whole bunch of complex systems working perfectly. Scary, but then it's been working for a hundred years.