New York Songlines: Sources

Books

Guidebooks:

• Musical New York, by Carol J. Binkowski

• Frommer's Memorable Walks in New York, by Reid Bramblett

• All Around the Town: Amazing Manhattan Facts and Curiosities, by Patrick Bunyan. A fun book with a ton of great New York trivia. One of the Songlines' most important sources.

• New York's 100 Best Little Places to Shop, by Eve Claxton

• Literary New York: A History and Guide, by Susan Edmiston and Linda D. Cirino. This is really in-depth.

• Guide to New York City Landmarks, by Andrew S. Dolkart

• The East Village, New York City, by Ephemera Press. An illustrated map of the East Village's cultural landmarks.

• The WPA Guide to New York City: The Federal Writers Project Guide to 1930s New York

• Zagat Survey New York City Restaurants, by Curt Gathje and Carol Diuguid

• Greenwich Village: A Primo Guide to Shopping, Eating and Making Merry in True Bohemia, by Robert Heide and John Gilman. A love letter to one of Manhattan's most fascinating neighborhoods.

• New York: Songs of the City, by Nancy Groce.

• New York City Starwalks: A Guide to the Exclusive Haunts, Habits and Havens of the Big Apple's Happening Celebs, by Larry "Wolfe" Horwitz. An exhaustive if star-struck guide to your famous neighbors. (If the celebrity columnist from The Onion actually knew about celebrities, he'd be this guy.)

• Manhattan on Film 2, by Chuck Katz.

• Rock and Roll Explorer Guide to New York City, by Mike Katz and Crispin Kott. Chock full of historic addresses and tales from rock history.

• Radical Walking Tours of New York City, by Bruce Kayton. This book introduced me to the history written on Manhattan's streets.

• The New York of the Novelists, by Arthur Bartlett Maurice

• The Lower East Side: Remembered & Revisited, by Joyce Mendelsohn. A meticulously researched guide from a great street historian.

• Touring the Flatiron: Walks in Four Historic Neighborhoods, by Joyce Mendelsohn. Another excellent neighborhood guide.

• The Beat Generation in New York: A Walking Tour of Jack Kerouac's City, by Bill Morgan. A wide-ranging look at the haunts of the Beats.

• The Street Book: An Encyclopedia of Manhattan's Street Names and Their Origins, by Henry Moscow. A fascinating reference work.

• Living It Up: A Guide to the Named Apartment Houses of New York, by Thomas E. Norton and Jerry E. Patterson. I admire this sort of thing--an obsessive focus on a single aspect of New York life.

• The Streets Where They Lived: A Walking Guide to the Residences of Famous New Yorkers, by Stephen W. Plumb. A fine guide to the locales of significant New Yorkers.

• The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations, by Tony Reeves. It's worth buying for the New York locations alone.

• Infamous Manhattan, by Andrew Roth. Well-researched, well-written guide to Gotham's crimes.

• New York Notorious: A Borough-by-Borough Tour of the City's Most Infamous Crime Scenes, by Paul Schwartzman and Rob Polner. Enjoys the subject a little too much.

• Shecky's Bar, Club and Lounge Guide. Um... could use a little work.

• Secret New York: The Unique Guidebook to New York's Hidden Sites, Sounds & Tastes, by Robert Sietsema. The Voice's food critic knows his stuff.

• Manhattan Block By Block: A Street Atlas, by Jack Tauranac. The essential map of Manhattan.

• Time Out New York Bars & Clubs. Far superior to Shecky's.

• AIA Guide to New York City, by Norval White and Elliot Willensky. Every New Yorker should have a copy of this book.

• New York, A Guide to the Metropolis: Walking Tours of Architecture and History, by Gerard R. Wolfe. Very detailed and informative.

• New York's Nooks and Crannies, by David Yeadon. My first intro to a lot of New York's best stuff.

Other Useful Books:

• From Urban Village to East Village: The Battle for New York's Lower East Side, by Janet L. Abu-Lughod

• The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld, by Herbert Asbury

• Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940, by George Chauncey

• New York Confidential, by Sharon Churcher

• Terrible Honesty: Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s, by Ann Douglas

• The Epic of New York City, by Edward Robb Ellis

• In Old New York: A Classic History of New York City, by Thomas Janvier

• Lights and Shadows of New York Life, by James D. McCabe, Jr.

• Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk, by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain. Those blokes in London were just a bunch of copycats, to hear them tell it.

• Low Life, by Luc Sante. A tremendous inspiration--not enough addresses, though!

• The New York Chronology, by James Trager. A year-by-year account of New York's growth, changes and milestones--packed full of info.

• Republic of Dreams; Greenwich Village: The American Bohemia, 1910-1960, by Ross Wetzsteon

Inspiration:

• The Songlines, by Bruce Chatwin

• From Hell, by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell

• Guide to Greece, by Pausanias

• Beyond the Bedroom Wall, by Larry Woiwode

Note: Books not linked are generally out of print; you might find them through Advanced Book Exchange or interlibrary loan.

Websites

New York History:

• Forgotten NY; an amazing site with information and photographs of New York's vanishing legacies.

• NYC Facts. Many links to New York-related sites, historical and otherwise.

• Gotham Center for New York History. A useful site put together by one of the authors of Gotham.

• History of the Fire Department of the City of New York.

• Lost New York City. A photographic record of demolished New York buildings, particularly in Alphabet City and the Lower East Side.

• Museum of the City of New York

• New York City: A Gay History. A cool site, though often unavailable.

• New-York Historical Society

• New York History Net

• NYNY. A timeline of the history of New York.

• Virtual New York. A history project out of CUNY.

Walking Tours:

• Big Onion Walking Tours

• Jim Dykes' A Buzz Around New York. Personalized tours, with a special focus on New York celebrities.

• Joyce Gold History Tours of New York

• Location Tours, Inc. New York in movies and on TV.

• New York City Cultural Walking Tours

• Watson Adventures Scavenger Hunts. Walking tours in the form of scavenger hunts--a terrific idea.

• Criminal History of the East Village. From Andrew Roth's Infamous Manhattan.

• A Love of Monsters. "Gargoyles and Architectural Details in New York City"; includes several illustrated walking tours.

• South Village Virtual Tour from the Greenwich Village Society for Historical Preservation.

• Walking Off the Big Apple. Numerous eclectic self-guided walking tours; very much in the Songlines spirit.

Tourist Info:

• NYC & Company. The official website.

• Manhattan on Wikitravel. The tourist guide to Manhattan that anyone can edit. See in particular Greenwich Village, East Village, Chelsea/Garment District, Gramercy/Flatiron, Theater District and Midtown East.

• Newyorkology: Amy's NYC Travel Tips. Up-to-the-minute guide to things to do in town.

• Virtual Tourist: New York City Travel Guide.

• The NYC Insider.

New York Blogs:

• Curbed. A blog about New York City's greatest passion, real estate.

• Gawker. Largely about New York media.

• Gothamist. Covers New York crime as well as media.

Kindred Spirits:

• superfuture newyork. Annotated maps of the cool places in Manhattan (among many other world cities).

• Small Town Brooklyn. A format similar to the Songlines--but for Brooklyn.

• Sampling Broadway: Intersections of Time and Place

• Manhattan Timeformations. "Mapping Manhattan's skyscraper districts through time"--pretty cool.

• Mr. Beller's Neighborhood. An aerial map of Manhattan hyperlinked to stories set in specific places. Add your own story!

• Place Matters. Compiling a census of places that matter to New Yorkers.

• New York City Signs: 14th Street to 42nd Street. I identify both with the geographic organization and the obsessive collection of trivia.

• The Brick Apple: New York City in LEGO. I have to admit that this insane person belongs in this category.

• Disappearing Places. Not Manhattan-focused, but with a similar elegiac geography theme.

Miscellaneous New York:

• New York City Stock Photo Archive. Includes all sorts of wonderful and obscure buildings.

• New York City Map Portal. A vital songlining tool.

• Mad Men Mapped: A Guide to NYC Hot Spots Frequented by Our Favorite Characters. A fun map put out by WNYC.

  About the Author:

  • Jim Naureckas' page at FAIR

  • Jim's Irish Genealogy Pages
  
  
  
  
  

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