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Title details for Twenty Minutes in Manhattan by Michael Sorkin - Available

Twenty Minutes in Manhattan

by Michael Sorkin
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The walk from my apartment in Greenwich Village to my studio in Tribeca takes about twenty minutes, depending upon the route and whether I stop for a coffee and the Times. Invariably, though, it begins with a trip down the stairs.

And so sets out architecture critic Michael Sorkin on his daily walk from his home in a Manhattan old-law-style tenement building. Sorkin has followed the same path for over fifteen years, a route that has allowed him to observe the startling transformations in New York during this period of great change. Twenty Minutes in Manhattan is his personal, anecdotal account of his casual encounters with the physical space and social dimensions of this unparalleled city.

From the social gathering place of the city stoop to Washington Square Park, Sorkin's walk takes the reader on a wry, humorous journey past local characters, neighborhood stores and bodegas, landmark buildings, and overlooked streets. His perambulations offer him—and the reader—opportunities to not only engage with his surroundings but to consider a wide range of issues that fascinate Sorkin as an architect, urbanist, and New Yorker. Whether he is despairing at street garbage or marveling at elevator etiquette, Twenty Minutes in Manhattan offers a testing ground for his ideas of how the city can be newly imagined and designed, addressing such issues as the crisis of the environment, free expression and public space, historic preservation, and the future of the neighborhood as a concept.

Inspired by Sorkin's close, attentive relationship to his beloved city, Twenty Minutes in Manhattan is in the end a valentine to the idea of the city that ultimately offers a practical set of solutions that are relevant to not only the preservation and improvement of New York but to urban environments everywhere.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    June 30, 2009

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781861896919

    • PDF ebook

      • ISBN: 9781861896919
      • File size: 865 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      June 1, 2009
      Architecture critic and CUNY professor Sorkin (Against the Wall: Israel's Barrier to Peace) sets out with the simple task of narrating the daily commute from his Greenwich Village apartment to his studio in Tribeca. The result, a book of essays that's both memoir and sociohistorical study, is anything but pedestrian. Sorkin covers a range of material, from the history of NYC tenement laws to the sociological ramifications of Disneyland to his own battle with an avaricious landlord. Taking the torch from late urban activist Jane Jacobs, Sorkin discusses the ideological function of the urban neighborhood and its citizens, particularly as an antidote to the commercializing, gentrifying, homoginizing effects of capitalism. Historical and architectural details are considered at length; the Washington Square arch, for example, was "erected to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of George Washington's inaugural," but later used by Marcel Duchamp and John Sloan "to declare the independence of the 'Republic of Greenwich Village.'" Sorkin also profiles current residents like his elderly neighbor Jane, "an active presence at the community garden" who once "propelled herself from her chair to thwart a mugging across the street." Delightful and informative, this romp will please anyone with affection for the big city.

    • Library Journal

      June 15, 2009
      Sorkin (architecture & urban design, City Coll. of New York; "Indefensible Space: The Architecture of the National Insecurity State"), formerly the architecture critic for the "Village Voice"sections of this book were previously published there and in "Architectural Record"offers a potpourri of personal, if not always original, observations on the urban environment gleaned from his daily 20-minute walks from his home near Washington Square to his Tribeca office. He contemplates philosophers (e.g., Friedrich Engels, Walter Benjamin, Guy Debord), praises Jane Jacobs, and disdains Donald Trump's architectural developments. Most key topics relate to Manhattan urban design surface, from the removal of Richard Serra's highly controversial Tilted Arc from Federal Plaza to the history of the 1916 zoning law. By situating his discussion in two high-income neighborhoods, Sorkin avoids more challenging questions of urban poverty, sluggish economic development, culture conflict, and education. VERDICT This book is essentially a romantic epilog to Jane Jacobs's more universal "The Death and Life of Great American Cities", and, on the topic of public space, it does not measure up to Kristine F. Miller's "Designs on the Public" or William H. Whyte's "The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces".Paul Glassman, Felician Coll. Lib., Lodi, NJ

      Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • OverDrive Read
  • PDF ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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