The New Yorkers

July 4, 2022
New York Times reporter Roberts (A History of New York in 27 Buildings) delivers an entertaining and informative group biography of essential New Yorkers “whose roles were largely overlooked or, at best, survive as a footnote.” His timeline ranges from John Colman, the city’s “first recorded homicide,” in 1609, to public housing advocate Carmelia Goffe, who helped revive Brooklyn’s Brownsville neighborhood in the 1980s. Along the way, Roberts profiles Archbishop John Hughes, who combatted anti-Catholic bias in the 19th century; housewife-turned-activist Lillian Edelstein, who fought city planner Robert Moses’s plans for the Cross-Bronx Expressway—and won; and journalist John “Tex” McCrary and his wife, Jinx Falkenburg, hosts of the first political talk radio show. In one of the book’s most moving chapters, Roberts describes how 23-year-old garment worker Clara Lemlich stood up at a union meeting in 1909 and demanded the general strike that became known as the Uprising of 20,000. (“Audacity—that was all I had—audacity,” Lemlich later said.) Throughout, Roberts’s wry wit and rigorous research enliven accounts of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, the displacement of white residents from Harlem, and more. The result is a treasure trove of New York City lore. Photos.

September 1, 2022
A journalist who has covered New York City for more than 50 years offers a potpourri of stories about some of the city's overlooked residents during four centuries of history. America's largest and most polyglot city is impossible to bring into crystal-clear focus, but this book makes it come alive. Although not all of Roberts' figures are stellar humans, he succeeds in his quest to rescue New York's "unheralded heroes, men and women whose roles were largely overlooked or, at best, survive as a footnote." Writing with delightful verve, the author creates a narrative that falls somewhere between a rogues' gallery and a pantheon of extraordinary people. Opening with a murder and closing with an inspirational neighborhood leader, the text is filled with a full range of NYC characters, the already well-known ones playing only walk-on roles. We learn about Revolutionary firebrand Isaac Sears; African American oyster restaurateur Thomas Downing; Bishop John Hughes, a champion of Catholic schooling; attorney Charles O'Conor, who brought down Boss Tweed; Elizabeth Jennings, who protested discrimination on public transport 100 years before Rosa Parks; Charles Dowd, creator of standard time zones; the Bradley-Martins, the city's most extravagant and clueless 19th-century couple; Clara Lemlich, early-20th-century labor firebrand; Ciro Terranova, the "Artichoke King" and crime-family mobster; Audrey Munson, "America's first supermodel"; Jack Maple (whose sketch is the most amusing tale), the transit cop who invented the crime-mapping Compstat system; and Carmelia Goffe, an unsung heroine of the revival of her Brownsville neighborhood in the 1970s and beyond. Perhaps fittingly, the book feels like a New Deal painting you spot in post offices: a panorama of all kinds of New Yorkers doing their best to either improve the world or take advantage of it. The author readily admits his subjectivity, wryly noting that " 'The Biography' might have required 923,380,602 chapters, if you accept that figure as the number of people who ever lived in New York." A book guaranteed to enlighten and entertain anyone interested in NYC.

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