A comprehensive history of the families who risked fortunes and occasionally lost them while working their designs on N.Y.C.'s skyline—by the author of The Phony War (1982) and The Day America Crashed (1979). From the Astors in the late 19th century to the Trumps of yesterday, Manhattan real estate has been a quintessential family business. The reasons become clear as Shachtman traces the process by which generations of Rhinelanders, Astors, and Goelets cultivated their modest, pre-elevator, lower-Manhattan rental properties while gradually transforming them into grand hotels, palatial mansions, and the base of America's most sophisticated social elite. The wave of Russian-Jewish immigrants who followed brought their own ideas of family intact from their homeland; to ensure the survival of their own they banded together to purchase apartment buildings in their ghettos on the Lower East Side, experiment with larger projects in the outer boroughs, and eventually—sometimes a generation or so later—tackle the well- entrenched establishment on the great island itself. Then as now, the business of buying low, building tall, and selling high was a cutthroat one in which only blood relatives could truly be trusted. Developers without heirs were likely to see their influence on the skyline die quickly, while even families virtually destroyed by New York's constant economic fluctuations were able to recover in subsequent, possibly wiser, generations. The downside of rampant overdevelopment is given short shrift in this mild-mannered account, however. Despite occasional eccentricities (old Astor's wet nurse, Trump's manipulation of the media), Shachtman evokes a hard-working, civic-minded, rather stodgy group, whose generally humble demeanor contrasts sharply with the concrete evidence of their ambitions. Overly respectful, perhaps, but captivating nevertheless.
Pub Date: Aug. 21, 1991
ISBN: 0-316-78213-0
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1991
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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