Downtown
My Manhattan

While it’s true that Pete Hamill’s Downtown is a love letter to New York, and Manhattan specifically, and it starts off charmingly enough, it quickly becomes unfocused. Downtown meanders from one piece of history to the next on a whim, until your eyes glaze over because it’s so dull and entrenched i......more

Lets just say that this book may have been single-handedly responsible with my fascination with the city of NY and at least partially, if not altogether, responsible for my moving here. I believe this memoir was written after Hamill got 'on the wagon'. I mention this because a lot of critics seem to......more

Anyone who loves New York City, really loves it, absolutely MUST read this book--part history, part memoir, and totally entertaining de facto guidebook. No, NYC isn't what it 'used to be,' but as Hamill fascinatingly illuminates, maybe it never was; it's always changing, and it's always been changin......more

I am such a sucker for love letters to New York City. I think that in some way it makes me feel more like a New Yorker when I can read these books and decode them on a personal level. I was attracted to the book because I work in lower Manhattan on a project that will necessarily permanently change......more

I don't usually recommend the non-fiction research books that I use to collect background information on whatever work-in-progress I have going on, mainly because I usually don't read them cover-to-cover. I often search the Table of Contents and/or the Index to read the sections pertinent to my rese......more