Broadway, Fran Leadon
Broadway, Fran Leadon
List: $34.99 | Sale: $24.50
Club: $17.49

Broadway
A History of New York City in Thirteen Miles

Author: Fran Leadon

Narrator: Kevin Pariseau

Unabridged: 14 hr 4 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/17/2018

Synopsis

Broadway takes us on a mile-by-mile journey that traces the gradual evolution of the seventeenth-century's Brede Wegh, a muddy cow path in a backwater Dutch settlement, to the twentieth century's Great White Way. We learn why one side of the street was once considered more fashionable than the other; witness construction of the Ansonia Apartments, Trinity Church, and the Flatiron Building and the burning of P. T. Barnum's American Museum; and discover that Columbia University was built on the site of an insane asylum. Along the way we meet Alexander Hamilton, Edgar Allan Poe, John James Audubon, Emma Goldman, "Bill the Butcher" Poole, "Texas" Guinan, and the assorted real estate speculators, impresarios, and politicians who helped turn Broadway into a living paradigm of American progress, at its best and worst. Broadway tells the vivid story of what is arguably the world's most famous thoroughfare.

About Fran Leadon

Fran Leadon is an architect and coauthor of the fifth edition of the AIA Guide to New York City. A native of Gainesville, Florida, he teaches at the City College of New York and lives in Brooklyn.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Mike

This book is an absolute masterpiece of New York City historical writing. Breaking Broadway into its separate and distinct 13 miles, Fran Leadon brilliantly spools out a story that perambulates between race and class, individuals and mass movements, myths and hidden facts, and does so in a voice tha......more

Goodreads review by Ray

This is quite a complete history of the most famous street in America. Leadon starts right at the Battery with the Dutch and goes right up the entire 15 miles of Broadway...the history of the structures built and the characters involved is really fascinating...even a native-born Manhattanite as myse......more

Goodreads review by Caleb

I’m not sure exactly what my expectations for this book were, but it never quite nailed them. The book is organized geographically, going mile by mile up Broadway and recounting various pieces of history along the way. This is a perfectly good and interesting way to structure the book, but it meant......more

Goodreads review by Jerry

Loved it. First crisp fall day I will walk the 13 miles of Broadway!!!......more

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