Product Description
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.
Reviews/Praise
“Impressively detailed.... A lively history of one of the most famous streets in America.” —Kirkus
“[Leadon's] knowledge is expansive....[Broadway] is engagingly written and supplemented by good, easy-to-follow maps at each milestone.” —Booklist
"Fran Leadon's Broadway uses the thirteen miles of the great New York avenue to tell the remarkable story of the city's evolution---its landmarks and legends, its high-rollers and low-riders. Part architectural history, part social history, it's a cornucopia of intellectual delights." —John Lahr