Waterfront, a Journey around Manhattan

I recommend this book as an up to date (2005) meditation on and description of the Manhattan shoreline. Mr. Lopate has some intelligent insights as he circumnavigates the island on foot. He is an acute observer and critic of the city's architecture and its design; he is in no way hostile to all and sundry, but notes where buildings and parks are in sympathy with their surrounds, and where the mark has been missed.
The abandonment of shipping and commerce on the Hudson and East Rivers has been the major discontinuity for the Manhattan perimeter. The rethinking of how the littoral should be repurposed and redesigned is a work in progress. Lopate's hope is for greater access to the water's edge, for so long unavailable for so much of its show more length.
Along his walk, which is not without its interruptions, the writer (who is primarily an essayist, not an architect) provides much incidental background to that rich history of the island and its hustling maritime legacy. Among other subjects, he discusses teredo worms, the power brokers, especially Robert Moses, the Fulton Fish Market, the Washington and Brooklyn Bridges, Captain Kidd, and public housing (with some praise it should added).
If you're an NYC citizen, read it and you might get interested further in your great city. If not, you'll still be better informed about it. show less

To read and like this book you must:
1. love New York
2. tolerate grumpiness
3. accept that sometimes you & the author will disagree about things like landscape architecture and writing about buildings, and that this need not result in chucking the book across the room.

Enjoyable book about the waterfront of New York City and it's history. Slow in some places but fascinating overall.