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Good Nonfiction about New York City

Description: However you define a good book, if it's nonfiction and about New York, New York, it's welcome on this list. Please note that fiction and books about other places, if added to this list, may be down-voted without mercy.

Rank Title Author Added

1

Here is New York

1,202 members

23 reviews

4.2

3 Members: lilithcat, MikeBriggs, ladyand24

2

Triangle: The Fire that Changed America

by David Von Drehle

1,364 members

34 reviews

3.9

3 Members: lilithcat, kageeh, AnnaClaire

3

Apple of My Eye

by Helene Hanff

364 members

18 reviews

3.9

3 Members: lilithcat, Chatterbox, ladyand24

4

The Battle for New York: The City at the Heart of the American Revolution

by Barnet Schecter

267 members

2 reviews

3.9

2 Members: AnnaClaire, ladyand24

5

Forgotten New York: Views of a Lost Metropolis

215 members

1 review

4.2

2 Members: AnnaClaire, ladyand24

6

Republic of Dreams : Greenwich Village: The American Bohemia, 1910-1960

by Ross Wetzsteon

179 members

1 review

4.1

2 Members: Chatterbox, ladyand24

7

This is New York, Honey!

by Michele Landsberg

20 members

2 reviews

4.2

2 Members: Chatterbox, ladyand24

8

American Moderns: Bohemian New York and the Creation of a New Century

by Christine Stansell

221 members

2 reviews

½ 3.4

2 Members: eromsted, Chatterbox

9

The Rise of New York Port (1815-1860)

by Robert Greenhalgh Albion

45 members

½ 3.5

2 Members: eromsted, ladyand24

10

The Historical Atlas of New York City: A Visual Celebration of 400 Years of New York City's History

by Eric Homberger

662 members

2 reviews

4

2 Members: eromsted, ladyand24

11

The Colossus of New York

by Colson Whitehead

643 members

13 reviews

½ 3.5

Member: DorsVenabili

12

Gone to New York: Adventures in the City

161 members

4 reviews

3.8

Member: Chatterbox

13

by Richard Berenholtz

77 members

4

Member: abbottthomas

14

The Assassination of New York

by Robert Fitch

64 members

5

Member: eromsted

15

The Book of Mychal: The Surprising Life and Heroic Death of Father Mychal Judge

by Michael Daly

54 members

2 reviews

½ 4.5

Member: aulsmith

16

The Motion of Light in Water: Sex and Science Fiction Writing in the East Village {revised}

by Samuel R. Delany

586 members

7 reviews

½ 4.3

Member: aulsmith

17

Chants Democratic: New York City and the Rise of the American Working Class, 1788-1850

by Sean Wilentz

255 members

1 review

½ 3.5

Member: eromsted

18

Terrible Honesty: Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s

419 members

5 reviews

½ 3.6

Member: Chatterbox

19

Conquering Gotham : a Gilded Age epic : the construction of Penn Station and its tunnels

367 members

7 reviews

3.8

Member: AnnaClaire

20

Working-Class New York

by Joshua Benjamin Freeman

97 members

4

Member: eromsted

21

The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York

by Robert A. Caro

3,723 members

66 reviews

½ 4.5

Member: eromsted

22

The Day Wall Street Exploded: A Story of America in Its First Age of Terror

by Beverly Gage

184 members

6 reviews

3.8

Member: AnnaClaire

23

Tompkins Square Park

7 members

Member: eromsted

24

The Monied Metropolis: New York City and the Consolidation of the American Bourgeoisie, 1850-1896

by Sven Beckert

131 members

1 review

½ 3.7

Member: eromsted

25

The Triangle Fire

122 members

1 review

½ 4.3

Member: AnnaClaire

26

The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America

by Russell Shorto

2,527 members

60 reviews

4.1

Member: AnnaClaire

27

New York in the Thirties

by Berenice Abbott

334 members

4 reviews

4.1

Member: Chatterbox

28

Burning New York

by James T. Murray

11 members

4

Member: eromsted

29

The Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime That Scandalized a City & Sparked the Tabloid Wars

by Paul Collins

884 members

46 reviews

½ 3.4

Member: Chatterbox

30

Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives: A Pictorial History of Working People in New York City

by Debra E. Bernhardt

28 members

Member: eromsted

31

A Living Lens: Photographs of Jewish Life from the Pages of the Forward

by Alana Newhouse

116 members

1 review

Member: eromsted

32

The Works: Anatomy of a City

883 members

10 reviews

3.9

Member: eromsted

33

From Welfare State to Real Estate: Regime Change in New York City, 1974 to the Present

34 members

1 review

3.8

Member: eromsted

34

East side, west side : organizing crime in New York, 1930-1950

by Alan A. Block

10 members

Member: eromsted

35

The road to mobocracy : popular disorder in New York City, 1763-1834

by Paul A. Gilje

39 members

1 review

½ 4.5

Member: eromsted

36

City Trenches: Urban Politics and the Patterning of Class in the United States

by Ira Katznelson

43 members

Member: eromsted

37

Resistance: A Radical Social and Political History of the Lower East Side

by Clayton Patterson

17 members

Member: eromsted

38

A Fire in Their Hearts: Yiddish Socialists in New York

by Tony Michels

59 members

1 review

Member: eromsted

39

How the Other Half Lives

by Jacob A. Riis

1,613 members

11 reviews

4

Member: eromsted

40

The New York Approach: Robert Moses, Urban Liberals, and Redevelopment of the Inner City

by Joel Schwartz

11 members

Member: eromsted

41

City of Eros: New York City, Prostitution, and the Commercialization of Sex, 1790-1920

by Timothy J. Gilfoyle

195 members

2 reviews

4

Member: eromsted

42

The Tenant Movement in New York City, 1904-1984

by Ronald Lawson

5 members

Member: eromsted

43

In transit : the Transport Workers Union in New York City, 1933-1966

by Joshua Benjamin Freeman

34 members

Member: eromsted

44

Tramps and Reformers, 1873-1916: The Discovery of Unemployment in New York (Contributions in American History)

by Paul Ringenbach

3 members

Member: eromsted

45

Artisans of the New Republic: Tradesmen of New York City in the Age of Jefferson

by Howard B. Rock

23 members

Member: eromsted

46

Still the Promised City?: African-Americans and New Immigrants in Postindustrial New York

by Roger Waldinger

24 members

4

Member: eromsted

47

World of Our Fathers

932 members

13 reviews

4

Member: eromsted

48

Harlem, Negro metropolis

by Claude McKay

25 members

3

Member: eromsted

49

"Or Does It Explode?": Black Harlem in the Great Depression

by Cheryl Greenberg

33 members

3

Member: eromsted

50

Old Bowery days : the chronicles of a famous street

by Alvin F Harlow

13 members

Member: eromsted

51

Second Founding: New York City, Reconstruction, and the Making of American Democracy

by David Quigley

57 members

Member: eromsted

52

Sunshine and Shadow in New York

by Matthew Hale Smith

24 members

½ 4.5

Member: eromsted

53

The volcano under the city

by William Osborn Stoddard

2 members

Member: eromsted

54

Lights and shadows of New York life;: Or, The sights and sensations of the great city

by James Dabney McCabe

32 members

1 review

½ 4.5

Member: eromsted

55

Somewhat More Independent: The End of Slavery in New York City, 1770-1810

40 members

Member: eromsted

56

New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery, and Conspiracy in Eighteenth-Century Manhattan

506 members

5 reviews

3.9

Member: eromsted

57

Old New York in Early Photographs

196 members

2 reviews

½ 4.6

Member: eromsted

58

The City of New York: A history illustrated from the collections of the Museum of the City of New York

by Jerry E. Patterson

28 members

½ 2.5

Member: eromsted

59

Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898

by Edwin G. Burrows

1,611 members

7 reviews

4.2

Member: eromsted

60

La Guardia, a fighter against his times

11 members

Member: eromsted

61

Artisans, evangelicals, and the city : a social history of abolition and labor reform in Jacksonian New York

by John B. Jentz

1 member

Member: eromsted

62

Jack Tar vs. John Bull: The Role of New York's Seamen in Precipitating the Revolution (Studies in African American History and Culture)

by Jesse Lemisch

7 members

Member: eromsted

About This List

Started: AnnaClaire
February 2012
Type: Numbered and unnumbered

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