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Here is New York as you've never seen it before; the New York behind the New York that you think you know so well. With drawings and comics in her signature style, Julia Wertz regales us with dozens of street scenes that show exactly what the city looked like "then" versus "now"; cartoons that detail the quirky, quintessentially New York histories that took place there, and several series of detail drawings including the clocks, mailboxes, lampposts and other ephemera that have evolved over the years. Tenements, Towers & Trash takes on a wild ride in a time-machine taxi, from the streets of the present-day Big Apple lined with big Apple stores and CVS's to the Days of Yore, when Mayor La Guardia declared pinball machines illegal and Greenpoint was the city's premier destination for vaudeville and film. Not just for die-hard New Yorkers, this hilarious, charming book will appeal to any history lover or comics fan, as well as Julia's fans who are eager for more of her work.
Summary
An acclaimed cartoonist presents New York City as you've never seen it before, with a side-splittingly funny illustrated history of the blocks, the buildings, the guts, and the little known charms (and horrors) of the greatest city in the world.
In Tenements, Towers & Trash, Julia Wertz takes us behind, underneath, around, and into the New York that you think you know. Not the tourist's New York (the Statue of Liberty makes a brief appearance and the Empire State Building not at all), but the underbelly of the city that never sleeps. With drawings and comics in her signature style, Wertz regales us with streetscapes "Then and Now" and little-known tales, such as the lost history of Kim's Video, the complicated and unresolved business of Ray's Pizza, the vintage trash and horse bones that litter the shore of Brooklyn's Bottle Beach, the ludicrous pinball prohibition, Staten Island's secret abandoned boatyard, and the hair-raising legend of the infamous abortionist of Fifth Avenue, Madame Restell.
From bars, bakeries, and bookstores to food carts, street cleaners, and apartments both cramped and grand, Tenements, Towers & Trash is a wild ride in a time machine taxi from the present day city to bygone days of yore.
**A New York Times Notable Book of the Year**
