There are hundreds, if not thousands, of books about New York City: extensive descriptions of its history, deep dives into topics like gentrification or architecture, novels that capture a particular moment in time, and the list goes on. . And in creating this list, which boils down that vast array to just 50 essential books, our goal was simple: to provide a starting point for anyone who wants to understand how New York became New York.
We tasked our editors with choosing the books that should be on no New York shelf, the ones that have informed your understanding of the city’s past, present, and future. we also asked city experts—architects, critics, authors, and planners among them—for their recommendations. the resulting list is not comprehensive, but it is diverse, with fiction, nonfiction, children’s books, and more represented. We hope you enjoy, and if your favorite isn’t on the list, let us know in the comments.
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and one thing to note: we’ve linked to amazon here for convenience, but of course we recommend looking for them at one of nyc’s amazing independent bookstores: the strand, three lives & company, green light, community bookstore, word, book culture… we could go on, but you get the point.
1.The Encyclopedia of New York Cityedited by Kenneth T. JacksonThe title is self-explanatory: This massive tome is a truly comprehensive reference guide to everything you need to know about New York City, from Berenice Abbott to Louis Zukofsky—literally.
2. at the old hotelby joseph mitchell“what a gift. that’s what I thought after reading about the old hotel. not just a gift to myself, but to new york city history. the way joseph mitchell writes is unbelievably wonderful, funny, understated and kind. Mitchell’s New York has cash registers made from bowls of soup, blackjacks made from rolled-up magazines and, most of all, characters. the details she shares could easily have been lost forever, instead they are here forever to transport and make any New Yorker’s heart swell.” —tamara shopsin, illustrator, cook and author of a stupid arbitrary goal
3. a history of new york in 101 objectsby sam roberts, based on a new york times article that solicited readers’ opinions on the trinkets that best represent new york, the Roberts’ 2014 book is a compact but comprehensive history of the world’s greatest city. the objects featured are wonderfully diverse: oysters, subway tokens, the sugar refinery domino sign, and the bagel all make cameo appearances, and the stories are compulsive reading. it’s proof that you don’t need to read a dense 1000-page book to get an idea of what makes a city a city.
4.the bowery boys: adventures in old new yorkby greg young and tom meyers“one of the recurring themes of this book is not just about the new york history, but how new yorkers looked at their own history throughout history.”—young, in an interview with the authors on curbed ny
5.the island in the center of the world by russell shorto“new yorkers tend to think that the city emerged fully formed from the past, a triumph of development by the British settlers, but the Dutch were here for over a century before the English gave them the book. Shorto’s book paints a vivid picture of a colony on the tip of Manhattan far more vibrant than most history textbooks allow and offers insight into the origins of a Europeanized New York often overlooked. tall”. —ben kabak, blogger, second ave sagas
6.new york city transit authority: objectsby brian kelleyfrom the team that brought you the reissue of the nycta standards manual comes this compendium of material subway ephemera, carefully collected and cataloged by photographer brian kelley. Taken together, the elements of the book, from vintage index cards to NYC uniforms to brochures distributed to tourists, make up a stunning visual archive of New York traffic history.
7. the other islands of new york cityby sharon seitz and stuart miller“first came out in 1996 and remains one of the best introductions to geography, ecology, and history from the city waterfront. it’s both a practical guide and a great piece of writing, and it definitely helped inspire my own fascination with the city’s waterfront.” —nathan kensinger, photographer and columnist for curled ny
8. The Great Central Oyster Bar & Restaurant Cookbookby Sally Ingber and Roy Finamore One of New York’s most iconic restaurants demands a great book packed with photography, recipes, and history. that’s exactly what you get here, with photographs, from the magnificent guastavino vault to dishes like oyster roast, along with more than 100 classic recipes, some dating back to the oyster bar’s opening in 1913. Behind the scenes and historical anecdotes also reveal how this space has remained sacred to New Yorkers for over 100 years.
9. gotham by mike wallace“While it only covered the period up to 1898 (at 1424 pages), I found the themes, especially on the cyclical nature of the city, to be timeless and applied. them in my time as deputy mayor. I’m excited for the next volume, which just came out, 17 years after the first! —dan doctoroff, CEO of sidewalk labs and author of Bigger Than Ever
10.greater gothamby mike wallace“the monumental sequel to monumental gotham covers only 21 years, from the consolidation of new york and brooklyn to 1919, but what years were! You might think that doing justice to that period of gold and misery in 1,000+ pages might be tedious, but this is an epic made for Netflix.” —justin davidson, architecture critic for new york magazine and author of magnetic city: a walking companion to new york
11. robert caro’s power broker“my favorite new york book is robert caro’s power broker. It’s a fascinating portrait of Robert Moses, who was a visionary urbanist, but also extremely short-sighted and downright horrible in many, many ways. it’s also about power and how it’s stacked. And, of course, it’s about New York: how and why it looks the way it does today.” —roz chast, New York cartoonist and author of going into town: a love letter to new york
12. the new york that nobody knowsby william b. Helmreich, the city’s native New Yorker and college professor, Helmreich wrote the definitive guide to walking around the city, well, walking; He covered 816 miles in search of him to chronicle the fascinating minutiae of New York’s many neighborhoods. And fans, take note: Helmreich plans to cover all five boroughs in separate volumes, with Brooklyn coming out in 2016 and Manhattan next year.
13.the life and death of great American cities by jane jacobs“in addition to being astute and full of implications about human nature and urban planning, His analysis evokes the city like almost no other book, in part because Jacobs evokes not only the New York of a particular era, but the something vital that is constant, that explains much of the attraction of the city, generation after generation. This, I said over and over again when I first read the book: This is what I love about New York.” —adelle waldman, author, the loves of nathaniel p
14. Kids Only by Patti Smith: Legend of the punk poet Patti Smith recounts her early years in 1960s and 1970s New York in this 2010 memoir. Wise, Just Kids is an elegiac ode to her friend, collaborator, and at times lover, the late Robert Mapplethorpe, whose rise as a photographer was intertwined with Smith’s own rise on the New York punk scene. It’s also a love letter to the city of the time, as Smith’s exploits take her from the Scribner Bookstore to the Chelsea Hotel to Coney Island to the sweaty heart of Max’s Kansas City and CBGB’s.
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15.here is new yorkby e.b. whitee.b. White took a walk through Manhattan and wrote one of the quintessential love letters to New York. The accomplished essayist and children’s book author pays a perfect tribute to mid-century New York City in an essay that still rings true today. he marvels at the implausible messiness of infrastructure and humanity, offering astute observations like this: “New Yorkers by temperament don’t crave comfort and convenience; if they did, they’d live elsewhere.”
16.forgotten new yorkby kevin walsh“walsh’s book came out just as i was moving to new york, and i used it as a kind of field guide to searching for bits of history in various New York neighborhoods. By pinpointing buildings, lesser-known landmarks, and remnants of early New York City, Walsh offers the reader a new way of looking at the everyday things we pass by on our way to the subway. he teaches people how to relate to their environment and ultimately appreciate it more, even the ugly parts.” —julia wertz, author, housing, towers & Trash: An Unconventional Illustrated History of New York City
17. the worksof kate ascher“you don’t have to be an infrastructure fanatic to love this illustrated guide to everything we take for granted: what our water systems, electricity, collection of litter and traffic and more really look below the surface, and how they really work. a bit dated, coming out in 2005, but most of our deep infrastructure is still what it was and you’ll never look at the city the same way again.” —brian lehrer, host, The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC
18. the aia guide to new york city by norval white and elliot willensky come on for the detailed descriptions of every major new york building, stay for the snide comments the authors didn’t make like all that. (See: Calling Richard Meier’s Prospect Park “A Huge Beached Whale,” among other bon mot.) First published 50 years ago, the most recent edition was published in 2010, and we’re eagerly awaiting the next.
19.new york never builtby greg goldin and sam lubellwhat would new york have become if an airport anchored the southern tip of manhattan, or if a huge i.m. supertall designed by pei loomed over the center of the city? We’ll never know, but Goldin and Lubell’s massive 2016 book lets us imagine. The duo recount dozens of fascinating unrealized architectural schemes for the five boroughs, and while some may make you feel grateful for the city we have, Raymond Hood’s “skyscraper bridge” may have been too much, others will make you wonder what could have been.
20.magnetic city by justin davidson“whether people visit new york for the first time, or have only seen it on television, or have lived here Their entire lives, I wish people could stand on a certain street corner or walk down a block and have an idea of why that is. everything has a story, and you can see that story embedded almost like a fossil or a series of archaeological layers in the city you’re seeing in front of you.”—from an interview with the author on curbed ny
21. the big bridge by david mcculloughtThis is a monumental book for a monumental bridge. Billed as humanity’s greatest feat of engineering when it opened in 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge was the result of a hardworking (some might say cursed) family, battling competitors and corrupt politicians to defeat the laws of nature and provide an essential connection between manhattan and brooklyn. David McCullough’s 500+ page book takes you through every detail, making it an indispensable resource for lovers of New York history and architecture.
22. delusional new york by rem koolhaas“one of the most original approaches to thinking about the role of “fantastic” architecture in the growth of new york city. It changed my way of understanding the city.” —david rockwell, founder and president, rockwell group
23. an architectural guide to brooklyn by francis morronebrooklyn has become a cultural destination, but what drew many to the district before it exploded in popularity is worth celebrating: its charming residential architecture . The Morrone Guide details the row houses, churches, and various historic structures in North and Downtown Brooklyn, including the borough’s iconic “Brownstone Belt.” The history of Brooklyn buildings is also that of brilliant, quirky, and sometimes corrupt architects and developers, giving the book additional color.
24.christadora by tim murphy“As an architect, I believe that architecture can have a profound impact on people’s lives. Tim Murphy has made architecture a character in his book, describing the way the city is an architectural landscape of stories, memories and cultural history”. —rick cook, founding partner, cookfox
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25. The Best of Everythingby Rona JaffeBefore The Group or The Bell Jar—or even Sex and the City—there was Rona Jaffe’s novel about a group of young women living, loving, and working in New York City. Its plot twists (abortion, stalking, and pre-marital sex among them) seemed shocking at the time, but influenced generations of New York women.
26. Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote Although many people are more familiar with Blake Edwards’ iconic film adaptation, the crystalline prose of Truman Capote’s original 1958 novel is well worth a read. Set in the 1940s, Breakfast at Tiffany’s Limns both the glamor and the darkness of Holly Golightly’s life as a pampered society prostitute on the Upper East Side, and the anonymous narrator who is both fascinated and repelled by her. Perhaps no author has better summed up the meaning of New York as a place of personal reinvention, for better or worse.
27. the long-winded lady by maeve brennan“one of my favorite new york books is the long-winded lady, a collection of short essays written primarily in the 1960s by maeve brennan for the new yorker magazine talk about the city. brennan observes the city and its everyday people on the streets of town and times square, from the tables of bars and restaurants, and in the lobbies of budget hotels. Her essays are full of compassion and connection, mixed with the anonymity of city life.” —jeremiah moss, blogger and author from new york on the run: how a great city lost its soul
28.The Incredible Adventures of Kavalier and Michael Chabon’s ClayThe history of comics is irrevocably intertwined with the history of New York City. In his 2000 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Michael Chabon tells the story of two Jewish boys, one from Brooklyn and the other a refugee from Nazi-occupied Prague, who dream of a Superman-esque hero and rise to fame during the era. gold from comics the city is as much a character as sammy, joe and their creation: a noisy, delusional dreamscape brimming with threat and possibility.
29.mary mccarthy’s gang“in her bestselling 1963 novel the gang, mary mccarthy writes about a cohort of young women who make their way in the great city about graduating from vassar. the book is so outspoken—about sex, power, and the deep misogyny of American life in the 1930s—that it caused a major scandal. This obscures McCarthy’s achievement; the group is not salacious or gossipy, but a brilliant work of American art. It’s one of my favorite novels, full stop, but it’s also one of my favorite fictional representations of the city I call home.” —rumaan alam, author, rich and handsome
30.Jonathan Lethem’s Motherless BrooklynThere’s something timeless about Motherless Brooklyn, the edgy 1999 crime novel from Boerum Hill-raised author Jonathan Lethem. Part hard-boiled detective caper and part suave character study, the story follows the travails of Lionel Essrog, an aspiring detective with a vividly realized case of Tourette’s syndrome. There’s a pervasive sense of movement and complexity as Lionel traverses the Brooklyn mob scene in search of a killer, or, as one character puts it, “wheels within wheels.”
31. So Little Timeby John Marquand“This novel was published in the 1940s and describes the city just before the second world war, when the end of the jazz age, the remains of the style of the 1930s, the growing sense of modernity and the ominous possibility that everything disappears in the war came together. there’s a beautiful passage where the main character’s son, from harvard, walks around rockefeller center and thinks about new york, and says something like: ‘jim thought everything was in new york. he let you know what people wanted and dreamed of…’” — paul goldberger, contributing editor at vanity fair and author of building art: the life and work of frank gehry
32. The Odd Woman and the City: A Memoirby Vivian GornickAny New Yorker with a good cobbler will tell you that the city is best experienced on foot—treading its streets and avenues and being open to surprising encounters. A pedestrian’s-eye-view is the vantage point of Vivian Gornick’s slim 2015 memoir about her decades in the city, filled with vivid descriptions of encounters with dear friends and dearer strangers. “Most people are in New York because they need evidence—in large quantities—of human expressiveness; and they need it not now and then, but every day,” she writes.
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33. Non-Stop Metropolisby Rebecca Solnit“You know, even if we made a thousand maps, that wouldn’t be an adequate description of New York. even eight million maps is not. each city is infinite, infinite stacked upon infinite…but multiple maps can at least begin to indicate that richness.” —from an interview with the author on curbed ny
34. new york 2140by kim stanley robinson“a fantastic book for anyone trying to imagine how climate change and rising waters will affect cities and new york in particular. robinson is a noted writer who mixes theory and science fiction. The book is a beautiful narrative of New York as Venice, tracing the daily lives of its ordinary heroes and celebrating not only the resilience of cities but, more importantly, the resilience of urban life in cities.” —amale andraos, dean of the graduate school of architecture, planning and conservation at columbia university; co-founder, workac
35. open cityby teju cole“teju cole captures the vitality of the city from the point of view of the flaneur, the stroller. one of my favorite quotes in the book is about our neighborhoods: ‘every neighborhood in the city seemed to be made of a different substance, each one seemed to have a different air pressure, a different psychic weight: the bright lights and closed shops, the housing projects and luxury hotels, the fire escapes and the parks of the city’”. —mark gardner, principal, jaklitsch/gardner architects
36. a walker in the cityby alfred kazin“a beautifully written memoir of kazin who grew up in brownsville, brooklyn in the 1920s. tells of his walks from brownsville to the “city” and reflect on their connection/disconnection with the world. it’s as much a memory of kazin as it is of brownsville and new york city as a whole.” —nadine maleh, executive director, institute for public architecture
37. streetfight: handbook for an urban revolutionby janette sadik-khan and seth solomonow “the legendary director of the new york city department of transportation tells the stories behind some of the celebrated—and wildly controversial—urban planning decisions that remade the city for people, block by block. since then, new york’s plaza conversions, parklets, and sprawling bike network have been emulated around the world.”—from curbed.com’s 101 books on where and how we live
38.low lifeby luc sante much has been said about how new york has lost its value. To delve into the dark underbelly of the city, look no further than the iconic tome of Luc Sante. theaters and saloons, opium and cocaine dens, gambling and prostitution – it’s all there, along with a look at why law enforcement failed to get it under control. Focusing on the period between 1840 and 1919, it will take you to an unrecognizable new now. york, pre-housing act, within the overcrowded slums and packed streets of the city.
39.the colossus of new yorkby colson whitehead“by reworking figures of speech, catchphrases and clichés about life in new york city, colson whitehead draws and reformulates the familiar in a game between hilarity and insight. we take a tour of a vision of new york in the last quarter of the 20th century, where the dynamics of gentrification seem less present than decadence: a new york that disappears”. —yolande daniels, founding partner, studiosumo
40. Showcase: New York’s Disappearing Face by james t. murphy and karla l. murphy“Beyond the colorful graphics, handcrafted signs and charming staff, independent storefronts provide us with a connection to our shared history, serving as physical representations of immigrants’ struggle to gain a foothold. Filled with large-format photos, this rich visual survey of familiar New York shows why these corner spots are vital to the character of our city.” —of curbed.com’s 101 books about where and how we live
41.the disappearance of new york: how a great city lost its soulby jeremiah moss“we all have our own lost city. if we stay long enough, we lose the city of our youth, our frustrated dreams and ambitions. but this book is not about how we all lose our personal city. it’s about how the city has been taken from us. It is not just the story of a death; it’s a murder story.”—from an interview with the author on curbed ny
42. james baldwin’s another country“for the ways it explored race, sexuality, and class, this was a groundbreaking book for several reasons. but baldwin’s exuberant language evokes the city of new york (and greenwich village of the 1950s, specifically) in a way that few other works of art have.baldwin also interprets light very well in this book: the gloom of a bar, the glow of a lamppost, the way light pours out of an open door onto a dark street. it’s subtle and powerful.” —asad syrkett, senior editor, braked
43. ladies and gentlemen, the bronx is burning: 1977, baseball, politics, and the battle for the soul of a city by jonathan mahler”ladies and gentlemen, the bronx is burning,” announced howard Cosell during the 1977 World Series, bringing the crime spree that gutted New York City’s northernmost borough into the international spotlight. Mahler’s book deftly weaves together the two most riveting battles of the year, a pennant race and a mayoral race, that ended up shaping the city’s future. —of curbed.com’s 101 books about where and how we live
44.a tree grows in brooklynby betty smithin betty smith’s coming-of-age novel, based on the author’s own childhood in brooklyn, a pre-hipster williamsburg is as finely-cast a character as francie nolan, the bookish protagonist around whom the story revolves.
45. Harriet the Spy by Louise FitzhughThe 1960s were a particularly rich era for stories of precocious children navigating Gotham. One of the most cunning heroines in the genre is Harriet M. Welsch, who in Louise Fitzhugh’s 1964 children’s novel is an 11-year-old girl from the Upper East Side who happily spends her days “spying” on her friends and neighbors. Harriet, curious and inquisitive (perhaps too much) is the perfect avatar for all the city dwellers who are fascinated by the passing lives of others.
46. stuart littleby e.b. WhiteThis iconic children’s book-turned-movie is a realistic fantasy chronicling the adventures of Stuart Little, who was born to human parents in New York City but was “very much like a rat/mouse in every way,” albeit shy. Adventures in the city abound, revolving around Stuart’s participation in a model sailboat race in Central Park.
47. playground of my mind by julia jacquette“in this large format book, artist julia jacquette illustrates her childhood memories of modernist new york playgrounds, visually connecting their pyramids, courses from water and climbing buckets to everyone’s architecture and everything from lego and aldo van eyck. Jacquette makes great use of the real estate of the page to make connections between the toy and the city, and the images are likely to trigger memories of rides on long-ago demolished playgrounds for kids from the ’70s and ’80s.” —alexandra lange, contained architecture critic
48. eloise by kay thompson and hilary knightwho didn’t want to be eloise when they were kids? The antics of the clever, pleasure-seeking six-year-old boy living in the Plaza Hotel were brought to life by nightclub singer Kay Thompson—who actually lived in the Plaza—and illustrator Hilary Knight in a series of books that began in 1955. You don’t have to be a kid to delight vicariously in Eloise’s adventures through the golden heart of Manhattan; we all know what it’s like to have so many things to do that it gives you kind of a headache.
49. When You Catch Up With Meby rebecca steadsure, there’s a heady element of time travel in rebecca stead’s 2009 newbery winner, about brainy high school student miranda who tries to crack a seemingly mysterious mystery. impossible. But it’s firmly rooted in late ’70s Manhattan, vividly and entertainingly recreated with memories of the stead’s own upper west side childhood. is both a memory novel and a children’s thriller, bringing to life in detail a few city blocks that, to a sixth grader’s eyes, can seem endless.
50. from the mixed files of mrs. basil e. frankweiler by e.l. KonigsburgAny New Yorker worth their salt knows that if you’re running away from home, there’s no better place to land than the Metropolitan Museum of Art. the environment is an important part of what e.l. The 1967 Konigsburg Children’s Mystery is an undying classic and, from the mixed archives, continues to inspire generations of children to take more than a passing interest in museums and art history, even if they can’t splash in the fountain.
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