The skilled craftsmen of New York founded The General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen in 1785, and the organization's history is aligned with the city's physical and cultural development. In 1820, The Society founded its library. It began a lecture series in 1837 and opened the Mechanics Institute in 1858 to provide free education in the trades. Prominent New York members included Andrew Carnegie, Peter Cooper, Abram S. Hewitt and Duncan Phyfe. The Society's educational programs continue to improve the lives of New Yorkers while fostering an innovative and inventive spirit. Historian Polly Guerin presents the distinguished history of this essential New York institution.

Uncover fascinating, little-known histories of the five boroughs in The Bowery Boys’ official companion to their popular, award-winning podcast. It was 2007. Sitting at a kitchen table and speaking into an old karaoke microphone, Greg Young and Tom Meyers recorded their first podcast. They weren’t history professors or voice actors. They were just two guys living in the Bowery and possessing an unquenchable thirst for the fascinating stories from New York City’s past. Nearly 200 episodes later, The Bowery Boys podcast is a phenomenon, thrilling audiences each month with one amazing story after the next. Now, in their first-ever book, the duo gives you an exclusive personal tour through New York’s old cobblestone streets and gas-lit back alleyways. In their uniquely approachable style, the authors bring to life everything from makeshift forts of the early Dutch years to the opulent mansions of The Gilded Age. They weave tales that will reshape your view of famous sites like Times Square, Grand Central Terminal, and the High Line. Then they go even further to reveal notorious dens of vice, scandalous Jazz Age crime scenes, and park statues with strange pasts. Praise for The Bowery Boys “Among the best city-centric series.” —New York Times “Meyers and Young have become unofficial ambassadors of New York history.” —NPR “Breezy and informative, crowded with the finest grifters, knickerbockers, spiritualists, and city builders to stalk these streets since back when New Amsterdam was just some farms.” —Village Voice “Young and Meyers have an all-consuming curiosity to work out what happened in their city in years past, including the Newsboys Strike of 1899, the history of the Staten Island Ferry, and the real-life sites on which Martin Scorsese’s Vinyl is based.” —The Guardian

Offering a cross section of hidden infrastructure, this title uses innovative graphic images and clear text explanations to answer all the questions about the way things work in a modern city and the people who support them.

Based on the popular blog Daytonian in Manhattan, 'Seeking New York' investigates the back stories of Manhattan's architecture and monuments. Alongside the expected account of architects, dates and styles, it reveals the human history of the buildings and statues: the scandals, the tribulations, the joys and achievements, the humanity, indeed, of the New Yorkers who lived within these walls.

"A casually wondrous experience; it made me feel like the city was unfolding beneath my feet.” —Jia Tolentino, author of Trick Mirror In place-names lie stories. That’s the truth that animates this fascinating journey through the names of New York City’s streets and parks, boroughs and bridges, playgrounds and neighborhoods. Exploring the power of naming to shape experience and our sense of place, Joshua Jelly-Schapiro traces the ways in which native Lenape, Dutch settlers, British invaders, and successive waves of immigrants have left their marks on the city’s map. He excavates the roots of many names, from Brooklyn to Harlem, that have gained iconic meaning worldwide. He interviews the last living speakers of Lenape, visits the harbor’s forgotten islands, lingers on street corners named for ballplayers and saints, and meets linguists who study the estimated eight hundred languages now spoken in New York. As recent arrivals continue to find new ways to make New York’s neighborhoods their own, the names that stick to the city’s streets function not only as portals to explore the past but also as a means to reimagine what is possible now.

The much-awaited reissue and reexpression of the classic New York row-house book Bricks and Brownstone, with all-new and updated text, new color photography, and luxury slipcase. The classic book Bricks & Brownstone, the first and still the only volume to examine in depth the changing form and varied architectural styles of the much-loved New York City row house, or brownstone, was first published in 1972. That edition helped pave the way for a brownstone revival that has transformed New York's historic neighborhoods over the past half-century. Rizzoli published a revised and expanded edition of the book in 2003, to much fanfare. This edition revisits the classic comprehensively, with an updated text and additional chapters, and an abundance of specially commissioned color photography. It offers to an eager audience the long-awaited re-issue of the landmark volume in a brilliant new form. Boasting more than 250 color and black-and-white images, this definitive volume traces New York's row houses from colonial days through World War I, examining in detail the Federal, Greek Revival, Gothic Revival, Italianate, and Second Empire architectural styles of the early and mid-nineteenth century, as well as the Neo-Grec, Queen Anne, Romanesque, Renaissance Revival, and Colonial Revival styles of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The new Bricks & Brownstone remains the gold standard reference on brownstone architecture and interiors, and one of the few truly classic histories of New York's urbanism and real estate development.

This was my first book and a true labor of love. I spent decades studying steam and the work of Dead Men, in both old buildings and on library shelves. I traveled the country, haunting used-book stores, looking for engineering books that held the answers to questions that nagged at me. I was obsessed with this topic, and when I finally sat to write, I poured all that I had learned into this book, and as I wrote, I tried my best to make the words sound good to you - like we were together and having a conversation. I wanted you to know what I know and I wanted you to be able to do what I can do when it comes to old steam systems. This book arrived in 1992 and has since gone though dozens of printings. We've sold it in every state as well as in foreign countries. Steam heat is everywhere there are old buildings, so why shouldn't you be the one with the answers? Dan Holohan