The Hall of Fame for Great Americans provides a window into the cultural changes taking place in the United States from the turn of the twentieth century into the twenty-first. This book is the first examination of the institutional and social history of America’s first hall of fame, from its dynamic opening in 1901 through its protracted decline in the late twentieth century and its brief return to relevancy in the early twenty-first century. It also examines in depth what is arguably the least studied project of Stanford White, one of the most distinguished architects of the Gilded Age. Originally designed for New York University’s new campus in the Bronx, the Hall of Fame once housed ninety-eight bronze busts of men and women deemed “great Americans” within its elegant colonnade, including the likes of George Washington, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Booker T. Washington, Susan B. Anthony, and Robert E. Lee. The Hall was conceived when the Great Man theory dominated American thought. However, as times changed, challenges to ideas concerning greatness and heroism grew, and heroes once celebrated were scrutinized for their flaws. The monument is now a shell of its former glory and largely forgotten, and the NYU campus that once housed the colonnade was eventually sold to Bronx Community College. In 2017, following the violent demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia, by white supremacists attempting to prevent the removal of a monument to General Lee, Andrew Cuomo, then governor of New York, thrust the Hall of Fame back into the limelight by ordering the busts of Lee and Stonewall Jackson to be removed. This action joined a national trend to remove monuments deemed offensive. Gerami argues that the rise and fall of this institution mirrors the nation’s changing conception of what comprises a hero. This biography of a public art memorial answers questions about the importance of art history and the cultural evolution of what it means to be great in America.

The Rough Guide to New York is the definitive guide to the cultural capital of the USA, taking you from the historic Financial District to the landmark architecture of Midtown and from peaceful Central Park to the furthest reaches of the Bronx. It's packed with detailed, lively reviews of accommodation and restaurants to suit all budgets, plus the practical information you'll need to make the best of your break. Get under the skin of this dynamic, vibrant city with the 'things not to miss', essentials on how to get around, and quirkier sections like the recommended New York books and films. With comprehensive research, stunning photographs and dozens of clear, accurate maps The Rough Guide to New York is your essential companion. Make the most of your trip with The Rough Guide to New York.

The must-have guide to pop culture, history, and world-changing ideas that started in New York City, from the magazine at the center of it all. Since its founding in 1624, New York City has been a place that creates things. What began as a trading post for beaver pelts soon transformed into a hub of technological, social, and cultural innovation—but beyond fostering literal inventions like the elevator (inside Cooper Union in 1853), Q-tips (by Polish immigrant Leo Gerstenzang in 1923), General Tso’s chicken (reimagined for American tastes in the 1970s by one of its Hunanese creators), the singles bar (1965 on the Upper East Side), and Scrabble (1931 in Jackson Heights), the city has given birth to or perfected idioms, forms, and ways of thinking that have changed the world, from Abstract Expressionism to Broadway, baseball to hip-hop, news blogs to neoconservatism to the concept of “downtown.” Those creations and more are all collected in The Encyclopedia of New York, an A-to-Z compendium of unexpected origin stories, hidden histories, and useful guides to the greatest city in the world, compiled by the editors of New York Magazine (a city invention itself, since 1968) and featuring contributions from Rebecca Traister, Jerry Saltz, Frank Rich, Jonathan Chait, Rhonda Garelick, Kathryn VanArendonk, Christopher Bonanos, and more. Here you will find something fascinating and uniquely New York on every page: a history of the city’s skyline, accompanied by a tour guide’s list of the best things about every observation deck; the development of positive thinking and punk music; appreciations of seltzer and alternate-side-of-the-street parking; the oddest object to be found at Ripley’s Believe It or Not!; musical theater next to muckracking and mugging; and the unbelievable revelation that English muffins were created on...West Twentieth Street. Whether you are a lifelong resident, a curious newcomer, or an armchair traveler, this is the guidebook you’ll need, straight from the people who know New York best.

The second volume of mini-travelogues by poet and writer Thomas Porky McDonald, On the Tour: More City Walks, picks up where A Walk in the City: An Incomplete Tour left off. This time, in addition to some previously unmentioned museums, a number of parks, historic houses, theaters and New York landmarks join in the mix. From Washington Square Park to the Old Town Bar & Restaurant to the Louis Armstrong House to the Queens, Bronx and Prospect Park Zoos, The City is well represented in McDonalds brief vignettes. Once again, a Walking Distance addendum is featured, in order to give the traveler an idea of the most possible sites one can see in a given day. Another useful and understated guide to the writers lifetime home.

This essay collection explores the inextricable link between rhetoric, public memory, and campus history projects. Since the early twentieth century after Brown University appointed its Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice, higher education institutions around the globe have launched initiatives to research, document, and share their connections to slavery and its legacies. Many of these explorations have led to investigations about the rhetorical nature of campus history projects, including the names of buildings, the installation of monuments, the publication of books, the production of resolutions, and the hosting of public programs. The essays in this collection examine the rhetorical nature of a range of initiatives, including the creation of land acknowledgement statements, the memorialization of universities’ historic financial ties to the slave trade, the installation and removal of monuments or historical markers, the development of curriculum for campus history projects. The book takes a chronological approach, beginning with the examination of a project at a university that was built on the site of a historic Native American town, moving through a series of essays about initiatives that grew out of universities’ associations with slavery and its legacies in the United Kingdom and America, and ending with a critique of several pedagological approaches in campus history courses designed for undergraduate students.