Description
Book SynopsisThe waterfront was the key to New York City's growth and prosperity. For hundreds of years, the shorefront of Manhattan Island served as the country's center of trade, shipping, and commerce. With its maritime links across the oceans, along the Atlantic coast, and inland to the Midwest and New England, Manhattan became a global city and home to the world's busiest port. It was a world of docks, ships, tugboats, and ferries, filled with cargo and freight, a place where millions of immigrants entered the Promised Land. In Waterfront Manhattan, Kurt C. Schlichting tells the story of the Manhattan waterfront as a struggle between public and private control of New York's priceless asset. Nature provided New York with a sheltered harbor but presented the city with a challenge: to find the necessary capital to build and expand the maritime infrastructure. From colonial times until after the Civil War, the city ceded control of the waterfront to private interests, excluding the public entire
Trade ReviewWell researched, engagingly told, and rich in historical, sociological, and economic detail,
Waterfront Manhattan represents a new way to look at the ascendancy and growth of America's most important city.
—Ray Bert,
Civil EngineeringIn
Waterfront Manhattan, Schlichting has woven an impressive narrative which is sure to shed light on this underappreciated aspect of New York City history.
—Erin Becker, Long Island Maritime Museum,
Global Maritime HistoryThis is an important book. There is much to ponder on the future of New York City's harbor, encompassing all five of the city's boroughs and also New Jersey's shoreline.
—Evelyn Gonzalez, William Paterson University,
Journal of American HistoryTable of ContentsPreface
1. Growth, Decline, and Rebirth
2. Water-Lots and the Extension of the Manhattan Shoreline
3. The Ascendency of the Port of New York
4. New York's Waterway Empires
5. The Social Construction of the Waterfront
6. The Port Prospers, the Railroads Arrive, and Congestion Ensues
7. The Public and Control of the Waterfront
8. Crime, Corruption, and the Death of the Manhattan Waterfront
9. Rebirth of the Waterfront
Notes
Index
