York in the 1960s


Book Description

As the fifties faded away, sixties style swept York into the modern age.




The Ungovernable City


Book Description

Vincent Cannato takes us back to the time when John Lindsay stunned New York with his liberal Republican agenda, WASP sensibility, and movie-star good looks. With peerless authority, Cannato explores how Lindsay Liberalism failed to save New York, and, in the opinion of many, left it worse off than it was in the mid-1960's.




Civil Rights in New York City


Book Description

Clarence Taylor is Professor of History and Black and Hispanic Studies at Baruch College and Professor of History at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. --Book Jacket.




Form Follows Finance


Book Description

In contrast to standard histories that counterpose the design philosophies of the Chicago and New York "schools," Form Follows Finance shows how market formulas produced characteristic forms in each city - "vernaculars of capitalism" - that resulted from local land-use patterns, municipal codes, and zoning. Refuting some common cliches of skyscraper history such as the equation of big buildings with big business and the idea of a "corporate skyline," this book emphasizes the importance of speculative development and the impact of real estate cycles on the forms of buildings.




Berkeley at War : The 1960s


Book Description

Berkeley, California, was the bellwether of the political, social, and cultural upheaval that made the 1960s a unique period of American history--a time when the top-down methods of a conservative establishment collided head-on with the bottom-up, grass-roots ethos of the civil rights movement and an increasingly well-educated and individualistic middle class. W.J. Rorabaugh, who attended the graduate school of the University of California at Berkeley in the early 1970s, presents a lively and informative account of the events that overtook and changed forever what had once been a quiet, conservative white suburb. The rise of the Free Speech Movement, which gave a voice to disfranchised students; the growth and increasing militance of a black community struggling to end segregation; the emergence of radicalism and the anti-war movement; the blossoming of "hippie" culture, with its scorn for materialism and enthusiasm for experimentation with everything from sex and drugs to Eastern philosophies; the beginnings of modern-day feminism and environmentalism--and how all of these coalesced in the explosive conflict over People's Park--are traced in a meticulously researched and authoritative narrative. At issue was the question of power, and the struggle between the establishment and the powerless led to developments that the advocates of a freer society could scarcely have foreseen: Ronald Reagan, elected governor of California in reaction to the events at Berkeley, and Edwin H. Meese III, who battled against the student movement and People's Park, rose to national power in the 1980s (without, however, gaining any popularity in Berkeley, where Walter Mondale won 83 percent of the vote in 1984). An invaluable account of its time and place, this book anchors the '60s in American history, both before and since that colorful decade.




Fun City


Book Description

On January 1, 1966, New York came to a standstill as the city’s transit workers went on strike. This was the first day on the job for Mayor John Lindsay—a handsome, young former congressman with presidential aspirations—and he would approach the issue with an unconventional outlook that would be his hallmark. He ignored the cold and walked four miles, famously declaring, “I still think it is a fun city.” As profound social, racial, and cultural change sank the city into repeated crises, critics lampooned Lindsay’s “fun city.” Yet for all the hard times the city endured during and after his tenure as mayor, there was indeed fun to be had. Against this backdrop, too, the sporting scene saw tremendous upheaval. On one hand, the venerable Yankees—who had won 15 pennants in an 18-year span before 1965—and the NFL’s powerhouse Giants suddenly went into a level of decline neither had known for generations, as stars like Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford on the diamond and Y.A. Tittle on the gridiron aged quickly. But on the other, the fall of the city’s sports behemoths was accompanied by the rise of anti-establishment outsiders—there were Joe Namath and the Jets, as well as the shocking triumph of the Amazin’ Mets, who won the 1969 World Series after spending the franchise’s first eight seasons in the cellar. Meanwhile, the city’s two overlooked franchises, the Knicks and Rangers, also had breakthroughs, bringing new life to Madison Square Garden. The overlap of these two worlds in the 1960s—Lindsay’s politics and the reemerging sports landscape—serves as the backbone of Fun City. In the vein of Ladies and Gentlemen: The Bronx is Burning, the book tells the story of a remarkable and thrilling time in New York sports against the backdrop of a remarkable and often difficult time for the city, culturally and socially. The late sixties was an era in which New York toughened up in a lot of ways; it also was an era in which a changing of the guard among New York pro teams led the way in making it a truly fun city.




Builder Levy: Humanity in the Streets


Book Description

Humanity in the Street: New York City 1960-1989 documents the resilience and power of the multiracial humanity that American photographer Builder Levy experienced in the city streets of New York during these decades. At that turbulent time, people around the world were struggling for freedom and independence and throughout United States people were marching in the streets for improving their life conditions. This exhaustive monograph gathers pictures that Levy took during the Civil Rights and anti-Vietnam protests in the 1960s, the peace march that was held in 1962 in response to the Cuban Missile Crisis; the poverty-ravaged Brooklyn of the 1960s, 70s and 80s; the inner city communities where he was a New York City teacher of at-risk adolescents for 35 years; Martin Luther King at Reception in 1968 after the W.E.B. Du Bois Centennial Tribute at Carnegie Hall where he gave the keynote speech; and marches and demonstrations in support of the Freedom struggle; for a NYC civilian review board and to stop police killings; for quality education for all NYC children, and against NYC school segregation.




Ed Koch and the Rebuilding of New York City


Book Description

In 1978, Ed Koch assumed control of a city plagued by filth, crime, bankruptcy, and racial tensions. By the end of his mayoral run in 1989 and despite the Wall Street crash of 1987, his administration had begun rebuilding neighborhoods and infrastructure. Unlike many American cities, Koch's New York was growing, not shrinking. Gentrification brought new businesses to neglected corners and converted low-end rental housing to coops and condos. Nevertheless, not all the changes were positive--AIDS, crime, homelessness, and violent racial conflict increased, marking a time of great, if somewhat uneven, transition. For better or worse, Koch's efforts convinced many New Yorkers to embrace a new political order subsidizing business, particularly finance, insurance, and real estate, and privatizing public space. Each phase of the city's recovery required a difficult choice between moneyed interests and social services, forcing Koch to be both a moderate and a pragmatist as he tried to mitigate growing economic inequality. Throughout, Koch's rough rhetoric (attacking his opponents as "crazy," "wackos," and "radicals") prompted charges of being racially divisive. The first book to recast Koch's legacy through personal and mayoral papers, authorized interviews, and oral histories, this volume plots a history of New York City through two rarely studied yet crucial decades: the bankruptcy of the 1970s and the recovery and crash of the 1980s.




Art and Design in 1960s New York


Book Description

Art and Design in 1960s New York explores the mutual influence between fine art and graphic design in New York City during the long decade of the 1960s. Beginning with advertising's "creative revolution" and its relationship to pop artists, the book traces design and art's developing interest in responses to civic problems such as the proliferation of billboards, navigation through the city's streets and subways, and issues of deteriorating infrastructure. The strategies exploited by these artists and designers resulted in similar approaches to visual imagery and shared techniques for thinking about and responding to the city in which they lived.




City Boy


Book Description

A memoir of the social and sexual lives of New York City's cultural and intellectual in-crowd in the tumultuous 1970s, from the acclaimed author Edmund White.