Waterfront Manhattan by Kurt Schlichting

Waterfront Manhattan by Kurt Schlichting

The waterfront was the key to New York City’s growth and prosperity. For hundreds of years, the shorefront of Manhattan Island served as the country’s center of trade, shipping, and commerce. With its maritime links across the oceans, along the Atlantic coast, and inland to the Midwest and New England, Manhattan became a global city and home to the world’s busiest port. It was a world of docks, ships, tugboats, and ferries, filled with cargo and freight, a place where millions of immigrants entered the Promised Land. In Waterfront Manhattan, Kurt C. Schlichting tells the story of the Manhattan waterfront as a struggle between public and private control of New York’s priceless asset. Nature provided New York with a sheltered harbor but presented the city with a challenge: to find the necessary capital to build and expand the maritime infrastructure. From colonial times until after the Civil War, the city ceded control of the waterfront to private interests, excluding the public entirely and sparking a battle between shipping companies, the railroads, and ferries for access to the waterfront. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the City of New York regained control of the waterfront, but a whirlwind of forces beyond the control of either public or private interests—technological change in the form of the shipping container and the jet airplane—devastated the city’s maritime world. The city slowly and painfully recovered. Visionaries reimagined the waterfront, and today the island is almost completely surrounded by parkland, the world of piers and longshoremen gone, replaced by luxury housing and tourist attractions. Waterfront Manhattan is a wide-ranging history that will dazzle anyone who is fascinated by New York.

Well researched, engagingly told, and rich in historical, sociological, and economic detail, Waterfront Manhattan represents a new way to look at the ascendancy and growth of America's most important city
—Ray Bert, Civil Engineering
In Waterfront Manhattan, Schlichting has woven an impressive narrative which is sure to shed light on this underappreciated aspect of New York City history.
—Erin Becker, Long Island Maritime Museum, Global Maritime History
This is an important book. There is much to ponder on the future of New York City's harbor, encompassing all five of the city's boroughs and also New Jersey's shoreline.
—Evelyn Gonzalez, William Paterson University, Journal of American History

Kurt C. Schlichting is the E. Gerald Corrigan ’63 Chair in Humanities and Social Sciences at Fairfield University, where he is a professor of sociology. He is the author of Grand Central’s Engineer: William J. Wilgus and the Planning of Modern Manhattan and Grand Central Terminal: Railroads, Engineering, and Architecture in New York City.

SKU	Nicht verfügbar
ISBN 13	9781421425238
ISBN 10	1421425238
Titel	Waterfront Manhattan
Autor	Kurt Schlichting
Buchzustand	Nicht verfügbar
Bindungsart	Hardback
Verlag	Johns Hopkins University Press
Erscheinungsjahr	2018-07-10
Seitenanzahl	256
Hinweis auf dem Einband	Die Abbildung des Buches dient nur Illustrationszwecken, die tatsächliche Bindung, das Cover und die Auflage können sich davon unterscheiden.
Hinweis	Nicht verfügbar