Between the late 19th and early 20th centuries, writes Wood, historian of American architecture and urbanism, New York City \u201cgrew into one of the world\u2019s largest, most important, and dynamic cities.\u201d Roughly 1 million buildings\u2014an astonishing number\u2014went up in the city during that period. In his deeply informed and informative account, Wood describes how population growth and a robust economy gave rise to a large and sophisticated construction industry. He deftly describes the numerous and complex arrangements that provided much-needed office buildings, homes, factories, railway stations, bridges, streets, and subway lines. We read, often in detail, about large construction firms, building trade associations, the mechanics of tunnel construction, labor unions, architectural offices, and wrecking companies. Wood introduces us to government workers and officials such as Thomas F. Gilroy (head of the city\u2019s Department of Public Works in the 1890s) and labor organizers such as Morris Rosen. After the city consolidated in 1898, Wood extends his gaze beyond Manhattan\u2019s skyscrapers to the lower-density outer boroughs. Throughout, he attends to the many conflicts between business and labor over the length of the workday, safety, and wages; contractor competition for private commissions and lobbying for public works projects; and city government efforts to manage the corruption, labor unrest, noise and disruption, and the regulatory demands of building activity. For those fascinated by urban development (particularly construction and particularly in New York City), reading this substantial history is time well spent. What primarily matters to Wood, however, are facts. Consequently, he refrains from any attempt at a more general understanding of building construction. In the last chapter, after a brief summary, the story simply ends.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Between the late 19th and early 20th centuries, writes Wood, historian of American architecture and urbanism, New York City \u201cgrew into one of the world\u2019s largest, most important, and dynamic cities.\u201d Roughly 1 million buildings\u2014an astonishing number\u2014went up in the city during that period. In his deeply informed and informative account, Wood describes how population […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1576,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1575"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}