The Neighborhood Manhattan Forgot - Matthew Spady

The Neighborhood Manhattan Forgot

Audubon Park and the Families Who Shaped It

(Autor)

Buch | Softcover
320 Seiten
2022
Fordham University Press (Verlag)
978-1-5315-0192-1 (ISBN)
21,15 inkl. MwSt
Audubon Park’s journey from farmland to cityscape

The study of Audubon Park’s origins, maturation, and disappearance is at root the study of a rural society evolving into an urban community, an examination of the relationship between people and the land they inhabit. When John James Audubon bought fourteen acres of northern Manhattan farmland in 1841, he set in motion a chain of events that moved forward inexorably to the streetscape that emerged seven decades later. The story of how that happened makes up the pages of The Neighborhood Manhattan Forgot: Audubon Park and the Families Who Shaped It.

This fully illustrated history peels back the many layers of a rural society evolving into an urban community, enlivened by the people who propelled it forward: property owners, tenants, laborers, and servants. The Neighborhood Manhattan Forgot tells the intricate tale of how individual choices in the face of family dysfunction, economic crises, technological developments, and the myriad daily occurrences that elicit personal reflection and change of course pushed Audubon Park forward to the cityscape that distinguishes the neighborhood today.

A longtime evangelist for Manhattan’s Audubon Park neighborhood, author Matthew Spady delves deep into the lives of the two families most responsible over time for the anomalous arrangement of today’s streetscape: the Audubons and the Grinnells. Buoyed by his extensive research, Spady reveals the darker truth behind John James Audubon (1785–1851), a towering patriarch who consumed the lives of his family members in pursuit of his own goals. He then narrates how fifty years after Audubon’s death, George Bird Grinnell (1849–1938) and his siblings found themselves the owners of extensive property that was not yielding sufficient income to pay taxes, insurance, and maintenance. Like the Audubons, they planned an exit strategy for controlled change that would have an unexpected ending.

Beginning with the Audubons’ return to America in 1839, The Neighborhood Manhattan Forgot follows the many twists and turns of the area’s path from forest to city, ending in the twenty-first century with the Audubon name re-purposed in today’s historic district, a multiethnic, multi-racial urban neighborhood far removed from the homogeneous, Eurocentric Audubon Park suburb.

Matthew Spady is the creator of the virtual walking tour AudubonParkNY.com and curator for AudubonParkPerspectives.org, a news site that reflects on the constant intersection of past and present in a vibrant and historic neighborhood. He was a leader in the decade-long community effort that culminated in the Audubon Park Historic District.

Introduction

A Word About Names

Chapter 1

Triumph and Tribulation on White Street

Chapter 2

The Land Before It Was Minnie’s

Chapter 3

Arcadia Found . . .

Chapter 4

. . . and Too Quickly Lost

Chapter 5

Audubon Park Begins to Bloom

Chapter 6

Fruit Basket Turnover

Chapter 7

Audubon Park’s New Power Brokers

Chapter 8

The Hemlocks

Chapter 9

Three Widows, Three Households

Chapter 10

Reconstructing the Park

Chapter 11

A Gilded Lily

Chapter 12

Panic

Chapter 13

Halcyon Days

Chapter 14

Waning Days of Summer

Chapter 15

Exit Strategy

Chapter 16

Partition Suit

Chapter 17

Clinging to the Past . . .

Chapter 18

. . . and Facing the Future

Chapter 19

Rapid Transit, Rapid Transformation

Chapter 20

When the Bloom Faded

Postscript

Bibliography

Acknowledgements

Erscheinungsdatum
Zusatzinfo 100 black & white illustrations
Verlagsort New York
Sprache englisch
Maße 152 x 229 mm
Themenwelt Literatur Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
Sachbuch/Ratgeber Geschichte / Politik Regional- / Landesgeschichte
Sachbuch/Ratgeber Natur / Technik
Geisteswissenschaften Geschichte Regional- / Ländergeschichte
ISBN-10 1-5315-0192-3 / 1531501923
ISBN-13 978-1-5315-0192-1 / 9781531501921
Zustand Neuware
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