Featured in The New York Times Book Review Only a few decades ago, the Brooklyn stereotype well known to Americans was typified by television programs such as “The Honeymooners” and “Welcome Back, Kotter”—comedies about working-class sensibilities, deprivation, and struggles. Today, the borough across the East River from Manhattan is home to trendsetters, celebrities, and enough “1 percenters” to draw the Occupy Wall Street protests across the Brooklyn Bridge. “Tres Brooklyn,” has become a compliment among gourmands in Parisian restaurants. In The New Brooklyn, Kay Hymowitz chronicles the dramatic transformation of the once crumbling borough. Devoting separate chapters to Park Slope, Williamsburg, Bed Stuy and the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Hymowitz identifies the government policies and young, educated white and black middle class enclaves responsible for creating thousands of new businesses, safe and lively streets, and one of the most desirable urban environments in the world. Exploring Brownsville, the growing Chinatown of Sunset Park, and Caribbean Canarsie, Hymowitz also wrestles with the question of whether the borough’s new wealth can lift up long disadvantaged minorities, and the current generation of immigrants, many of whom will need more skills than their predecessors to thrive in a postindustrial economy. The New Brooklyn’s portraits of dramatic urban transformation, and its sometimes controversial effects, offers prescriptions relevant to “phoenix” cities coming back to life across the United States and beyond its borders.

George Yetter's informative text describes why Williamsburg was founded and flourished during the colonial period. He traces the deterioration that followed when the capital moved to Richmond in 1780, and concludes with the exciting story of how Williamsburg's past was saved. Old photographs, daguerreotypes, watercolors, sketches, and maps capture "pre-restoration" Williamsburg. Lovely color "after" photographs show that the vision and dream have been fulfilled.

This up-to-date and comprehensive look at the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg illuminates the important role it has played in our understanding of 18th-century America.

For more than thirty years, the architectural research department at Colonial Williamsburg has engaged in comprehensive study of early buildings, landscapes, and social history in the Chesapeake region. Its painstaking work has transformed our understanding of building practices in the colonial and early national periods and thereby greatly enriched the experience of visiting historic sites. In this beautifully illustrated volume, a team of historians, curators, and conservators draw on their far-reaching knowledge of historic structures in Virginia and Maryland to illuminate the formation, development, and spread of one of the hallmark building traditions in American architecture. The essays describe how building design, hardware, wall coverings, furniture, and even paint colors telegraphed social signals about the status of builders and owners and choreographed social interactions among everyone who lived or worked in gentry houses, modest farmsteads, and slave quarters. The analyses of materials, finishes, and carpentry work will fascinate old-house buffs, preservationists, and historians alike. The lavish color photography is a delight to behold, and the detailed catalogues of architectural elements provide a reliable guide to the form, style, and chronology of the region's distinctive historic architecture.

A different time... A different place... What if you were there? More than 200 years ago, two thousand people lived in the town of Williamsburg, Virginia. If you lived back then... What would your house look like? What games and sports would you play? Would you go to school? What happened when you were sick or hurt? This book tells you what it was like to grow up in colonial days, before there was a United States of America.

""The Gardens of Colonial Williamsburg" features twenty gardens in Colonial Williamsburg's Historic Area. Stunning photography complements the text and detailed garden plans identify the plantings in each garden. Experience the sights, colors, and textures found in Colonial Williamsburg's gardens each season of the year."--Book jacket.