The Brooklyn Nobody Knows

Author: William B. Helmreich
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400883121
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 425

Book Description
A one-of-a-kind walking guide to Brooklyn, from the man who walked every block in New York City Bill Helmreich walked every block of New York City—6,000 miles in all—to write the award-winning The New York Nobody Knows. Later, he re-walked Brooklyn—some 816 miles—to write this one-of-a-kind walking guide to the city's hottest borough. Drawing on hundreds of conversations he had with residents during his block-by-block journeys, The Brooklyn Nobody Knows captures the heart and soul of a diverse, booming, and constantly changing borough that defines cool around the world. The guide covers every one of Brooklyn’s forty-four neighborhoods, from Greenpoint to Coney Island, providing a colorful portrait of each section’s most interesting, unusual, and unknown people, places, and things. Along the way you will learn about a Greenpoint park devoted to plants and trees that produce materials used in industry; a hornsmith who practices his craft in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens; a collection of 1,140 stuffed animals hanging from a tree in Bergen Beach; a five-story Brownsville mural that depicts Zionist leader Theodor Herzl—and that was the brainchild of black teenagers; Brooklyn’s most private—yet public—beach in Manhattan Beach; and much, much more. An unforgettably vivid chronicle of today’s Brooklyn, the book can also be enjoyed without ever leaving home—but it’s almost guaranteed to inspire you to get out and explore one of the most fascinating urban areas anywhere. Covers every one of Brooklyn’s 44 neighborhoods, providing a colorful portrait of their most interesting, unusual, and unknown people, places, and things Each neighborhood section features a brief overview and history; a detailed, user-friendly map keyed to the text; and a lively guided walking tour Draws on the author’s 816-mile walk through every Brooklyn neighborhood Includes insights from conversations with hundreds of residents

The New York Nobody Knows

Author: William B. Helmreich
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691169705
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 474

Book Description
"As a kid growing up in Manhattan, William Helmreich played a game with his father they called "Last Stop." They would pick a subway line and ride it to its final destination, and explore the neighborhood there. Decades later, Helmreich teaches university courses about New York, and his love for exploring the city is as strong as ever. Putting his feet to the test, he decided that the only way to truly understand New York was to walk virtually every block of all five boroughs--an astonishing 6,000 miles. His epic journey lasted four years and took him to every corner of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island. Helmreich spoke with hundreds of New Yorkers from every part of the globe and from every walk of life, including Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former mayors Rudolph Giuliani, David Dinkins, and Edward Koch. Their stories and his are the subject of this captivating and highly original book. We meet the Guyanese immigrant who grows beautiful flowers outside his modest Queens residence in order to always remember the homeland he left behind, the Brooklyn-raised grandchild of Italian immigrants who illuminates a window of his brownstone with the family's old neon grocery-store sign, and many, many others. Helmreich draws on firsthand insights to examine essential aspects of urban social life such as ethnicity, gentrification, and the use of space. He finds that to be a New Yorker is to struggle to understand the place and to make a life that is as highly local as it is dynamically cosmopolitan."--Publisher's description.

The Manhattan Nobody Knows

Author: William B. Helmreich
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691166994
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 376

Book Description
A unique walking guide to Manhattan, from the author of The New York Nobody Knows. --Amazon.com.

The Queens Nobody Knows

Author: William B. Helmreich
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691200025
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 480

Book Description
The only neighborhood-by-neighborhood guide to New York City's largest borough, from the award-winning author of The New York Nobody Knows Bill Helmreich walked every block of New York City—some six-thousand miles—to write the award-winning The New York Nobody Knows. Later, he re-walked most of Queens—1,012 miles in all—to create this one-of-a-kind walking guide to the city's largest borough, from hauntingly beautiful parks to hidden parts of Flushing's Chinese community. Drawing on hundreds of conversations he had with residents during his block-by-block journey through this fascinating, diverse, and underexplored borough, Helmreich highlights hundreds of facts and points of interest that you won't find in any other guide. In Bellerose, you'll explore a museum filled with soul-searing artwork created by people with mental illness. In Douglaston, you'll gaze up in awe at the city's tallest tree. In Corona, you'll discover the former synagogue where Madonna lived when she first came to New York. In St. Albans, you'll see the former homes of jazz greats, including Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, and Billie Holiday. In Woodhaven, you'll walk a block where recent immigrants from Mexico, Guyana, and China all proudly fly the American flag. And much, much more. An unforgettably vivid chronicle of today's Queens, the book can be enjoyed without ever leaving home—but it's almost guaranteed to inspire you to get out and explore this captivating borough. Covers every one of Queens's neighborhoods, providing a colorful portrait of their most interesting, unusual, and unfamiliar people, places, and things Each neighborhood section features a brief overview and history; a detailed, user-friendly map keyed to the text; photographs; and a lively guided walking tour Draws on the author's 1,012-mile walk through every Queens neighborhood Includes insights from conversations with hundreds of residents

Brooklyn

Author: Michael W. Robbins
Publisher: Workman Publishing
ISBN: 9780761116356
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 436

Book Description
A celebration of Brooklyn features more than one hundred original articles that tap into the life of "America's Hometown."

Brooklyn by Name

Author: Leonard Benardo
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814799469
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 223

Book Description
From Bedford-Stuyvesant to Williamsburg, Brooklyn's historic names are emblems of American culture and history. These pages take readers on a stroll through the streets and places of this thriving metropolis to reveal the borough's textured past. Over 500 of Brooklyn's most prominent place names are organized alphabetically by region. Photos & maps.

Where Nobody Knows Your Name

Author: John Feinstein
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0307949583
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 385

Book Description
Minor league baseball is quintessentially American: small towns, small stadiums, $5 tickets, $2 hot dogs, the never-ending possibility of making it big. But looming above it all is always the real deal: Major League Baseball. John Feinstein takes the reader behind the curtain into the guarded world of the minor leagues, like no other writer can. Where Nobody Knows Your Name explores the trials and travails of the inhabitants of Triple-A, focusing on nine men, including players, managers and umpires, among many colorful characters, living on the cusp of the dream. The book tells the stories of former World Series hero Scott Podsednik, giving it one more shot; Durham Bulls manager Charlie Montoya, shepherding generations across the line; and designated hitter Jon Lindsey, a lifelong minor leaguer, waiting for his day to come. From Raleigh to Pawtucket, from Lehigh Valley to Indianapolis and beyond, this is an intimate and exciting look at life in the minor leagues, where you’re either waiting for the call or just passing through.

Brooklyn

Author: Colm Toibin
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
ISBN: 0771085400
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 274

Book Description
Winner of the Costa Novel Award and longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Colm Tóibín's internationally bestselling novel is a story of devastating emotional power. At the centre of Colm Tóibín's internationally celebrated novel is Eilis Lacey, one among many of her generation who has come of age in 1950s Ireland but cannot find work at home. When she receives a job offer in America, it is clear to everyone that she must go. Leaving her family and country behind, Eilis heads for unfamiliar Brooklyn, and to a crowded boarding house where the landlady's intense scrutiny and the small jealousies of her fellow residents only deepen her isolation. Slowly, however, the pain of parting and a longing for home are buried beneath the rhythms of her new life—until she begins to realize that she has found a sort of happiness. But just as Eilis begins to fall in love, tragic news summons her back to Ireland, where she unexpectedly finds herself facing an impossible decision.

Brooklyn

Author: Thomas J. Campanella
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691208611
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 551

Book Description
A major new history of Brooklyn, told through its landscapes, buildings, and the people who made them, from the early 17th century to today.

When Brooklyn was the World, 1920-1957

Author: Elliot Willensky
Publisher: Harmony
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 248

Book Description
Around the corner. The next block. Across the At the end of the line. Borough Park. Gowanus. Flatbush. Canarsie. Ridgewood. Greenpoint. Brownsville. Bay Ridge. Bensonhurst. City Line. What was the place called Brooklyn really like back then... when Brooklyn was the world? Elliot Willensky, born in Brooklyn and now official Borough Historian, takes us back to a sweeter time when a trip on the new BMT subway was a delightful adventure, when summer days were a picnic on the sand and evenings were Nathan's hotdogs at Coney Island and a whirl of lights, spills, and chills at dazzling Luna Park. Remembering Brooklyn, it's the neighborhoods you think of first -- or maybe it's your own block, the one you were raised on. In those days, the street was a more animated, more colorful place. Jacks and jump rope, hit-the-stick, double-dutch and skelly or potsy (hopscotch to you) were played everywhere. The street was a natural amphitheater, and the stoop was the perfect place for grown-ups to sit and watch and visit with neighbors. Stores-on-wheels selling fruit, baked goods, and the old standby, seltzer, rolled right down the block, and the Fuller Brush man and Electrolux vacuum-cleaner salesmen worked door to door, saving housewives countless shopping trips. For many, a big night out was dinner at a Chinese restaurant, where 99 percent of the patrons were non-Chinese, and you could get mysterious-sounding dishes like moo goo gai pan and subgum chow mein -- "One from column A, two from column B." If you could afford to go somewhere really classy, the Marine Roof of the Bossert Hotel was one of the hottest nightspots. A hot date on Saturday night featured big bands at the clubs on TheStrip (Flatbush Avenue below Prospect Park) -- the Patio, the Parakeet Club, the Circus Lounge -- or gala stage shows at the Brooklyn Academy of Music or the enormous Paramount Theatre. Still, for family entertainment you couldn't beat a day at the beach and a night on Surf Avenue, taking in the sideshows and the penny arcades. For Brooklyn, the years between 1920 and 1957 were a special time. It was in 1920 that the subway system reached to Brooklyn's outer edge -- linking the entire borough with Manhattan and making it an ideal spot for millions of new families to build their homes. The end of the era came in 1957 -- the last year that Brooklyn's beloved Dodgers played at Ebbets Field before moving to sunny California. For many loyal fans the fate of "Dem Bums" represents the fate of Brooklyn. With a brilliant, entertaining text and hundreds of exciting, nostalgic photographs (many never before published), When Brooklyn Was the World recovers the history of this lively city, as remembered by the millions of people who knew Brooklyn in its golden era.