Broadway: A History of New York City in Thirteen Miles

by Fran Leadon

Overview

“Part lively social history, part architectural survey, here is the story of Broadway—from 17th-century cow path to Great White Way.”—Geoff Wisner, Wall Street Journal

From Bowling Green all the way to Marble Hill, Fran Leadon takes us on a mile-by-mile journey up America’s most vibrant and complex thoroughfare, through the history at the heart of Manhattan. Broadway traces the physical and social transformation of an avenue that has been both the “Path of Progress” and a “street of broken dreams,” home to both parades and riots, startling wealth and appalling destitution. Glamorous, complex, and sometimes troubling, the evolution of an oft-flooded dead end to a canyon of steel and glass is the story of American progress.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393357929
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	04/21/2020
Pages:	528
Sales rank:	221,519
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

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.

Table of Contents

"A Sort of Geographical Vivisection": A Note on Structure xiii

Preface xv

Mile 1 Bowling Green to City Hall Park

1 Soaring Things 3

2 Mud And Fire 13

3 Promenade 26

4 Fire and Progress 35

5 Barnum 44

6 Traffic 51

Mile 2 City Hall Park to Houston Street

7 Across the Meadows 63

8 "A Glance at New York" 69

9 Millionaires and Murderers 75

10 "Broadway is Never Finished" 85

Mile 3 Houston Street to Union Square

11 The Bend 93

12 Grace 103

13 Union 108

14 The Rialto 120

15 Incendiary Speech 126

Mile 4 Union Square to Herald Square

16 Ladies' Mile 137

17 The "Merry Chair War" 144

18 The Freak Building 153

19 The "Light Cure" 161

Mile 5 Herald Square to Columbus Circle

20 Great White Way 175

21 Eden 183

22 Times Square Types 195

23 Broadway Ghosts 207

Mile 6 Columbus Circle to 79th Street

24 The Boulevard 217

25 "Down There" 224

26 Chickens on the Roof 229

27 Harsenville 234

Mile 7 79th Street to 106th Street

28 The Raven of Speculation 241

29 Boomtown 249

30 Hometown 259

Mile 8 106th Street to 122nd Street

31 Asylum 269

32 Acropolis 276

33 God's Skyscrapers 285

Mile 9 122nd Street to 143rd Street

34 "Honest to Goodness Slum Land" 295

35 Murderville 303

Mile 10 143rd Street to 165th Street

36 The House on the Hill 313

37 Necropolis 326

38 Minnie's Land 331

Mile 11 165th Street to 179th Street

39 The Heights 343

40 Hilltoppers 348

41 The Fourth Reich 354

42 The Bridge 359

43 The Cut 365

Mile 12 179th Street to Dyckmaan Street

44 Mr. Billings 373

45 Mr. Molenaor 380

46 Mr. Barnard 386

Mile 13 Dyckman Street to 228th Street

47 Life and Death in Inwood 395

48 The Last Farm 401

49 Indian Trail 409

50 Where Does This Road End? 415

Acknowledgments 421

Notes 425

Bibliography 477

Illustration Credits 489

Index 491

Editorial Reviews

"Wonderful.… Engagingly written and full of vivid characters. I couldn’t put it down."

Kenneth T. Jackson

"Fran Leadon’s Broadway is only incidentally about the theaters that are the avenue’s famous feature, but is, as the subtitle promises, a witty and informed history of New York City—a travelogue through the past."

Shepherd Express - David Luhrssen

"Fran Leadon… is a perfect biographer for Broadway, a main character in the development of one of the world’s great cities. His book is dense, richly written and researched, loaded with a million fun anecdotes."

Bowery Boys blog

"Well-written and very readable. I recommend it highly for anyone with an interest in New York City and its history. In following the journey up Broadway mile by mile, the reader can better understand a lot of American history and the trip is quite enjoyable."

Bowling Green Daily News - Richard D. Weigel

Say "Broadway" and most people think of the dozen or so blocks that form the spine of the theater district and go far to define New York. But Broadway is a good deal more than that dazzling patch of neon and LED. It is a long, winding ribbon extending from Lower Manhattan through the Bronx and into the Westchester suburbs north of the city. Some blocks are graceful, many others far from it. Rarely, however, are they dull. In Broadway, his meticulously researched book, Fran Leadon, an architect steeped in New York's heritage, takes us on an invigorating historical stroll along the 13 miles that are the thoroughfare's Manhattan portion. Leadon offers textured snapshots of life as it once was, and sometimes still is, dividing his walk into 13 sections, one for each mile, from Bowling Green near the lower tip of the island to Marble Hill…Leadon is graced with a wry wit. Flashes of it are sprinkled throughout…

The New York Times Book Review - Clyde Haberman

01/01/2018
Architect Leadon, coauthor of the fifth edition of the AIA Guide to New York City, puts his background to good use in this entertaining look at how the growth and development of New York City’s most famous street paralleled that of Manhattan. Leadon’s method of organizing his rich source material makes the history more digestible; instead of a predictable chronological approach, he devotes a separate section to each single mile of the street, from its southernmost starting point in Bowling Green, north through 228th Street, after which it continues into the Bronx. As with the best popular histories, Leadon enlivens the past through memorable anecdotes, such as that of the accidental origin of the ticker-tape parade. Colorful individuals populate the narrative, including Alfred Ely Beach, who without anyone’s permission built the first subway under Broadway, and Martin Molenaor, a septuagenarian who spuriously claimed that he was the real owner of over 70 acres of prime real estate. Leadon covers other bits of essential ground, detailing the construction of noteworthy buildings, commenting on the role of mass transit in the life of Manhattan, and remarking on the changing nature of political protests in Union Square. This is a welcome complement to more daunting and encyclopedic volumes on New York’s history. Maps & illus. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

"Part lively social history, part architectural survey, here is the story of Broadway—from 17th-century cow path to Great White Way."

Wall Street Journal

"[Leadon's] knowledge is expansive…[Broadway] is engagingly written and supplemented by good, easy-to-follow maps at each milestone."

Booklist

"A new history of the street that tells the story of modern America."

The Guardian - David Taylor

"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 lowriders. Part architectural history, part social history, it’s a cornucopia of intellectual delights. Endlessly fascinating and full of fun."

John Lahr

"A magical mystery tour of the street that invented American popular culture."

Mike Davis

"Meticulously researched…Leadon’s tale is a whirl of characters…It is a whirl, too, of events…graced with wry wit."

Clyde Haberman

2018-01-22
Four hundred years in the life of a road the original Dutch settlers referred to as Brede Wegh (Broad Way).For a thoroughfare that, in the early 1600s, had such poor drainage that "the roadbed quickly became a foul stew of mud and horse manure," Broadway hasn't done too badly for itself over the ensuing centuries. In this opinionated work, architect Leadon (Architecture/City Univ. of New York) tells the story of Broadway in Manhattan, from Bowling Green in the south to the Bronx in the north. The book has 13 sections, one per mile, with stories behind the development of each neighborhood. The author gives space to everyone from the architects who designed Broadway's iron buildings to the theater world's stars and impresarios. Leadon calls the area's "lack of coherence" or development strategy "the urban planning equivalent of throwing dice." This is an impressively detailed history, sometimes overly so. Leadon is fond of long lists—e.g., items for sale in Constable's department store, "so comprehensively opulent, that it practically defined the Gilded Age"; the curios producer David Belasco kept in the studio above his theater; the diseases that killed New Yorkers in the early 19th century—and some readers may tire of repeated references to money: how much a property cost, the equivalent amount in today's dollars, etc. Still, Leadon offers plenty of entertaining anecdotes. George M. Cohan "insisted that his dressing room be decorated floor-to-ceiling with American flags," and Thomas Edison promoted his incandescent bulb in 1882 when he "mounted light bulbs on the heads of a contingent of militiamen and had them drag a steam engine and dynamo up Broadway." And the author has a way with a takedown: he notes that John Jacob Astor IV, pampered member of America's richest family in the 1890s, was known as "Jack Ass" and that his drowsy expression in photos made it seem "as if submitting to the lens was an hour of yachting lost forever."A lively history of one of the most famous streets in America.

Kirkus Reviews