Names of New York
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Names of New York by Joshua Jelly-Schapiro
"A casually wondrous experience; it made me feel like the city was unfolding beneath my feet." --Jia Tolentino, author of Trick MirrorIn place-names lie stories. That's the truth that animates this fascinating journey through the names of New York City's streets and parks, boroughs and bridges, playgrounds and neighborhoods.
Exploring the power of naming to shape experience and our sense of place, Joshua Jelly-Schapiro traces the ways in which native Lenape, Dutch settlers, British invaders, and successive waves of immigrants have left their marks on the city's map. He excavates the roots of many names, from Brooklyn to Harlem, that have gained iconic meaning worldwide. He interviews the last living speakers of Lenape, visits the harbor's forgotten islands, lingers on street corners named for ballplayers and saints, and meets linguists who study the estimated eight hundred languages now spoken in New York.
As recent arrivals continue to find new ways to make New York's neighborhoods their own, the names that stick to the city's streets function not only as portals to explore the past but also as a means to reimagine what is possible now.
Joshua Jelly-Schapiro, a geographer and writer, is a regular contributor to the The New York Review of Books who has also written for The New Yorker, New York, Harper's, the Believer, and The Nation, among many other publications. He is the author of Island People: The Carribbean and the World, and the co-editor (with Rebecca Solnit) of Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City Atlas. He is a visiting scholar at the Institute for Public Knowledge at NYU, where he also teaches.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781524748920 |
| ISBN 10 | 1524748927 |
| Title | Names of New York |
| Author | Joshua Jelly-Schapiro |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Random House USA Inc |
| Year published | 2021-04-13 |
| Number of pages | 256 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |