Customer Reviews

Chunky Big Apple - By: Robin Benson, 28 Sep 2007


A thick, 744 page book presenting the flavor of the world's premier city. Though the title suggests a visual year it is more a selection of photos arranged round themes: sports, travel, markets, the weather, construction, entertainment, civic events, personalities etc. Each gets a few pages with some images going back to the nineteenth century though most are from the thirties onward.

I thought the selection was quite impressive, there is something for every New Yorker here. Some of the names of the fifty-one photographersin the index will be familiar to readers of the Times. Neal Bonenzi, Sam Falk, Vincent Laforet & Ernie Sisto get the largest showing. Two of Laforet's are particularly stunning: his night time Manhattan skyline from July four 2005 with the sky alight with fireworks & the amazing shot from January thirteen, 2001 looking down on two workman repairing a colored light at the top of the radio mast on the Empire State (I was always curious about this photo because neither of them are wearing hard hats). An unfortunate omission, perhaps, is any work by Weegee. He brilliantly captured the lives of the working class over the years but his photos only appearedin the down-market tabloids.

The landscape format of the book works perfectly, the photos (with somein colour) are either one to a page or one to a spread, & all have comprehensive captions. This is a fascinating book, dip into it anytime to remind you of the rhythm of the city.

*I wonder if the publishers will do similar versions using the photo libraries of other great metro papers like the San Francisco 'Chronicle', Chicago 'Tribune' or the Washington 'Post'?