Magnetic City: A Walking Companion to New York

(Paperback)

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From the architecture critic for New York magazine, a guide to New York City-on foot, by bike, by ferry, and in the mind. This is at once a historical, cultural, architectural, literary, and deeply personal account of the city, told in seven tours (including Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx) and five essays. For nearly a decade, Pulitzer prize-winning critic Justin Davidson has explained New York, the city, to his readers at New York, the magazine. He has visited new and preserved buildings; explored neighborhoods in mid-transformation; interviewed architects, developers, and urban thinkers; and tracked the city's constant change. Now, he distills those experiences into Magnetic City- A walking guide to New York-the city around us, the one that's lost, and the one that's still to come. Essayistic in form, historical in scope, and filled with references to literature, music, art, and architecture, Magnetic City offers first-time visitors and lifelong residents a new way to see New York.

Reviews

An intimate, seductive guidebook.TheNew York Times

An enthralling new book makes clear that Im not alone in my home-town infatuation . . .lends nuance, texture and historical perspective to my impression that New York City has never been so appealing or life-affirming as it is today.New York Post

A street-level celebration of New York City in all its perpetual complexity and contradiction . . . a worthy companion to Alfred KazinsA Walker in the Cityand the American Institute of Architects guides to the architecture of New York as well as a treat for fans of the metropolis.Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Davidson, the Pulitzer Prizewinning architecture critic for New York magazine, is a resident, student, and passionate lover of New York, and he has done right by a subject that, fittingly, has been essayed many times before. He combines a keen intelligence, experience, observational skills, expertise (especially but not solely architectural), and an elegant writing style to make this beautifully produced book indispensable.Booklist (starred review)

In this exquisitely crafted book, Justin Davidson does more than direct our feet to New York's hidden monuments. He explains the structure of the city with a clarity that would be bracing even for a Gotham habitu, but more than that, he finds the meaning in every building and byway. If you already love the city, you will love it more after this book; if you have not yet fallen prey to its charms, these eloquent narratives will seduce you in. It would be glorious to go on the walks Davidson prescribes, but even those who read the book in an armchair a thousand miles away will be swept up by this evocative, pellucid, charming, and exuberant paean to the city that never sleeps.Andrew Solomon, National Book Award-winning author ofFar from the Tree

For those of us who primarily work in the city, we leave home, take the most direct route to our place of employment, and rarely look up or down, just straight ahead. We dont see the environment we live in.Magnetic Citychanged that for me. Now I dont want to go to work. I want to read any chapter in Justin Davidsons absorbing book and get my walking shoes on. Mr. Davidsons exceptional knowledge of our beloved city is inspiring.Magnetic Cityis now my official chaperone.Patti LuPone

Justin Davidson has a mind alive to every signal, and his brilliant prose style transmits that electricity in black-and-white type. He is thus born to the task of capturing the chaotic splendor of New York City on the page.Alex Ross, author ofListen to This

Justin Davidsons beautiful tours of New York City invoke and redouble our love of the metropolis. His observations of landmarks, in-between places, and layered histories, delivered by an amazing kindred-spirit of architecture, make us feel like royal presences in the city.Jerry Saltz, senior art critic,New York

A fascinating and insightful companion for a walking tour of New York City.I particularly enjoyed the rich interweaving of the contemporary and the historical.A book worthy of the 21st century flaneur!Daniel Libeskind

Author Bio

JUSTIN DAVIDSON is a classical music and architecture critic. He began his journalism career as a local stringer for the Associated Press in Rome (where he grew up) before moving to the United States to study music at Harvard. He went on to earn a doctorate degree at Columbia University, where he also taught. In 2002, he won the Pulitzer Prize in criticism for "his crisp coverage of classical music that captures its essence." In September 2007, he was hired by New York Magazine, where he continues on both beats.