The WPA guide to New York City - Federal Writers Project

Originally published in 1939 at the time of the World's Fair, this is a reissue of this guide for time-travellers. It offers New York-lovers and 1930s-buffs a look at life as it was lived in the days when a trolley ride cost only a few cents, a room at the Plaza was $7.50, "Dodger" fans flocked to Ebbetts Field, and the new World's Fair was the talk of the town. The New York of 1939 was a city where adventures began "under the clock" at the Biltmore, the big liners sailed at midnight, and Times Square was considered the crossroads of the world.;In many ways New York is unchanged. The great apartment buildings of the late 1920s and 1930s - the Century, the San Remo, the Majestic - and the Manhattan skyscrapers - the Rockefeller Center, the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building - still stand as sentinels to the past life of the city. Surprisingly, the book can still be used as a guidebook, challenging the contemporary observer to look for traces of a city that is no more.