Apple of My Eye

In 1976 Hanff (who we know and love from 84, Charing Cross Road) was asked to write the copy for a book of photographs of New York City. That's "New York, New York", not Brooklyn or the Bronx. She was pretty confident she would have an easy time of it, because she had lived all her adult life in Manhattan. But as she settled into her research, she realized that she, like so many New Yorkers, hadn't taken in a lot of the sights that all tourists absolutely "must see". She had never been to the Statute of Liberty, Grant's Tomb or Wall Street. She hadn't visited the new World Trade Center or taken a tour of Rockefeller Center. So for the next two months, she and her friend Patsy, another New Yorker, spent many days on foot, tour buses and show more subways, overcoming their fear of heights and filling in the gaps in their knowledge and experience of the Big Apple. It's a treat to follow them around, even though 35 years later so much has changed. Hanff updated the book in 1988, and even then she noted that "conditions (bankruptcy), places (Gimbel's and Brentano's) and one amenity (the Culture Bus) ...no longer exist; and ...new sights ... have sprung up during the past decade." She hated the fact that the Metropolitan Museum of Art had been created at the expense of 37 acres of Central Park, wouldn't take cabs, and didn't want to eat in any restaurant that anyone had ever heard of. Her book is a great mix of crankiness and admiration for that marvelous city so unlike any other, and is filled with historical tidbits and insider information that is no less delightful for being outdated. show less

Rainy bank holiday afternoons are ideal reading time and I greatly enjoyed taking a tour of New York with Helene Hanff. I am a committed armchair tourist: one who has no real urge to actually visit distant places but loves to read about them. Hanff is a wonderfully engaging writer, so this is an extremely readable account of New York’s tourist spots in the latter half of the twentieth century. It is a little weird to read a detailed account of visiting the World Trade Centre, though. Hanff expertly combines historical anecdote and bickering with her friend & tour companion Patsy. I learned quite a bit about New York at a time when it was apparently near-bankrupt, including the clearest explanation I’ve yet found for its baffling show more street naming scheme. (At least in the UK streets are named randomly, so you don’t expect them to make sense.) Hanff’s love and enthusiasm for her city’s many idiosyncrasies comes through clearly. Yet she also makes clear that the prime museums, art galleries, etc were built by plutocrats using blood money. The visit to Ellis Island is another sombre moment. Nonetheless, the overall tone of the book is cheerful and I found it a delightful trip across the Atlantic and back a few decades. I was also reminded that somehow I lived in Cambridge for a decade, on and off, without ever visiting King’s College Chapel. It’s easy to take tourist attractions for granted when you walk past them most days. This book makes a strong argument for exploring the history on your doorstep. show less

Helene Hanff tours around her home city of NYC with a friend in preparation for writing copy for a touristy book of photographs of New York. Great fun to follow along behind, hearing all the snippits of history she knows and the gobbets of interesting facts she picks up along the way. Hanff's personality and that of friend Patsy shine through, enriching an already interesting narrative. Dated, being from the seventies (with a few postscripts from the early eighties), but that, maybe, makes it even more fun--kind of a snapshot of the city from forty years ago. Recommended to fans of Hanff, NYC, or memoirs of place/travel.

This is really a love letter to Manhattan. In 1976, Hanff got a job to write copy for a book of photographs of New York City. Beginning her research, she made a list of "Must See" sights, and realized that she'd missed most of them! She'd never been to the Statue of Liberty, or Wall Street, or the Stock Exchange. She'd been to the Cloisters once, many years before, never toured Rockefeller Center, never been to Grant's Tomb. So she enlisted her friend, Patsy Gibbs, and the two of them spent two months doing the things tourists do in New York City.

However, this is not a guidebook. It's written from the point of view of a longtime resident, and is as much about the people as the sights. Hanff minces no words when she disapproves of show more something (the loss of Central Park land for additions to the Metropolitan Museum, the soullessness of theTrump Tower), but you'll be in no doubt about the things she loves, either (the Statue of Liberty, the skyline and so much else). The East Side/West Side split is analyzed and explained ("East Siders are conventional and proper, part of the Establishment and in awe of it -- which God knows, and God be thanked, West Siders are not."). She revels in the city's diversity ("And you won't believe it, but on Allen Street there's a Kosher Chinese restaurant where the Chinese waiters wear yarmulkas.") She acknowledges the bloody history behind the fortunes (Frick, Morgan, Rockefeller) that nevertheless contributed so much to the ordinary people of the city, those whom John D. Rockefeller III called "the many".

Times change and cities change, though, and it's amusing to read about the shocking "suggested contribution" at the Cloisters: $1.75. The Met and the Cloisters are now charging $15 (though one payment will get you in to both if you're crazy enough to try to see them on the same day), and the Museum of Modern Art wants $20 from you if you want to enter its lovely new building. This edition is, in fact, a later one, published in 1988, and Hanff notes a number of changes in several "P.S." chapters. (Sadly, Gibbs had died of breast cancer several years before this edition.)

Hanff admits it when she's wrong about something, too. She had gloomily predicted that damage to Central Park from a subway excavation would never be repaired. It was, with no scars.

But one thing she was wrong about made me cry in public. I bought this book at the Printers Row Book Fair, and began it when I stopped for lunch. Early in the book, Hanff writes of going with Gibbs to the Observation Deck of the as-yet-unfinished World Trade Center, and says, "You know the problem with this book?" I said to Patsy. "I want to write about the Trade Center Plaza and I can't because it isn't there yet. I want to write about Radio City Music Hall and I'm not sure it'll still be there when the book comes out." Who would have guessed the fates of those buildings today?

Those sentences made me tear up. The one below made them fall. Hanff had noted the controversy over the Trade Center's construction at a time when NYC was bankrupt and the Port Authority, which owned it, wasn't intended to build and own huge office buildings. But looking over the skyline from the Observatory, she says, "And suddenly, irrationally, I gloried in the high-handed, high-flying, damn-your-eyes audacity that had sent the Trade Center's twin columns rising impudently above the skyline at the moment when New York was declared to be dying, and so deep in debt it couldn't afford workers to dispose of the Center's trash, police its plaza or put out its fires." show less

The original edition of this book was published in 1977. This edition was published in 1988 and contains 26 pages of updated information and musings. Although now dated, the book still makes for interesting reading. It is not a tourist guide book, but a look at New York City in the seventies and eighties through the eyes of a long-term resident and a lover of the city. It contains information, observations, anecdotes, some historical tidbits, musings and opinions about not just the city itself but its people, conventions and various issues.
Having never been to New York I found it interesting to learn about the geography of the city and about some of the famous streets and landmarks which up to now have been isolated words and places show more devoid of any real context. About the meaning and implications of East Side/West Side, Uptown/Downtown etc.
New York City is ever changing, now as well as then. The World Trade Centre played a significant role in their trips (both she and Patsy are afraid of heights), and there will be many other places in this book that are no longer 'on the ground' or have been resited. However the book is worth reading more for its tone and insights, and a look at the way the city was 3 decades ago, rather than as a factual account.
I don't think it matters if you have been to New York City or not, or if you lived there once or live there now; there will be something you'll enjoy in this book. show less

This was the perfect plane ride companion during my quick weekend jaunt to New York City. When quirky writer Helen Hanff was assigned to write a guidebook about New York City for tourists, she recruits her plucky friend Patsy to join her in rediscovering New York City. Hanff’s book is so accessible and the duo is just so damn likeable, I wished I could travel back in time to 1977 (when the book was written) to experience the city with them. There were some unexpectedly painful moments – like when Hanff and Patsy conquer their fear of heights to see the city from the viewing deck of the World Trade Center – but mostly full of delightful vignettes about a city Hanff clearly adored.

This is a wonderful love letter to Manhattan in Hanff's most engaging voice. After being asked by her publisher to write a guide to New York, Hanff solicited the help of a friend to visit New York landmarks that they thought tourists should see. Over several months they seemed to have a blast checking out places that either they were fond of or thought were important, even if they hadn't been there before themselves. We can just imagine the two women making their way around the city they loved, and although their observations are now several decades old, we want to trace their footsteps.