The Gilded Age in New York, 1870-1910

Bought this for a client. She loved the details and illustration

I loved this book. An exploration of virtually every aspect of life in New York during the Gilded Age, it combines fascinating historical background, entertaining anecdotes and a vast array of wonderful old photos and drawings to make you feel like you have travelled through time to visit the world's greatest city during an unparalleled period of growth, development and modernization. Any New Yorker will enjoy the countless origin stories of familiar neighborhoods, buildings, bridges and other landmarks. Any history buff will revel in its peek into life in a simpler time as the industrial influences that would forever change the city, country and world are just beginning to make their mark. Great, great stuff.

I am interested in that period of American history, and the book is adding to my knowledge.

Wow....I can't say enough good things about this book. I love good, meaty coffee table books, and this certainly fits the bill. The illustrations are simply dazzling. Many of the historic photos are colorized in a way I've never seen before. The cover of the book is a good example of what to expect inside....a huge picture with lots of detail painstakingly colorized that brings a real vibrancy to the work. My husband and I kind of get hypnotized staring at some of those colorized images of Mulberry street and Central Park.The actual book itself was much larger than I was expecting, and the quality of the illustrations were sharp and clear. Even the fonts in the side-bars added a wonderful period touch.And the text: Very nice! This is a whirlwind tour of NYC, so no topic has a ton of depth, but there are interesting sidebars with vignettes that provide humanizing details. I hope I don't sound like an advertisement....but for $27 you get a lot for your money. I wish there were more stunning coffee table books like this for other cities. Boston, anyone? Washington DC?

This is more like a coffee-table book, with gorgeous pictures, colorized photographs, drawings, contemporary newspaper cut-outs, and the like. I found it superbly produced.In addition, however, the commentary was excellent. I learned so much about New York from this book!The contents included not just the mega-rich, but also the discussion of the tenements and the growth of Progressive thought as America moved into the Industrial age with brio and passion.Totally worth the price.

I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but I bought it because I attended a lecture by the author who gave a sneak peek at the contents so I know it has excellent information inside. What surprised me was the quality of the book. It's a good size with nice, thick pages. But, most importantly, the pictures inside are stunning. I don't know how they managed to get that level of detail out of pictures so old. I know I will spend hours just looking at the pictures.

Other reviews have said pretty much everything there is to say; my beef is that this is a photo survey of NY in general at about the turn of the century - NOT specifically about the RICH PEOPLE whom the age is named for. I was looking for a book that would've showed much more about these gilded age RICH PEOPLE, more snaps of their mansions, the interiors, the gilded age RICH PEOPLE themselves, what they wore, where they bought it, who designed it and supplied it. Besides Del's, where did they eat? What did they eat? How much was a Singer-Sargent portrait? How much was a carriage; how many servants was needed to support a 65 room mansion? When they shopped, how did they do it? What happened to all their stuff? In the spirit of being morbidly fascinated by and envious of Rich People, I wanted more, More, MORE.NOTE: I've discovered the book The Opulent Interiors of the Gilded Age [Dover 0-486-25250-7] a reprint of a 2 volume work from 1883/84. Opulent Interiors has pictures of about 95 private homes of the richest of the rich - almost all of them demolished within 50 years of being built; a $17.5 million dollar mansion, in 1880 $$, gone in 65 years! Updated text by Lewis/Turner/McQuillin dissects what your'e seeing [who built it, who influenced them, the statement they were making], the source of their wealth [how they got and lost it], how wealthy Americans began to define and solidify their position as a 'class' - well, all sorts of general things that you want to know about Gilded Age Rich People without having to read a gigantic book to get at it - really great.

As a fan of Ephemeral New York, I was excited to get my hands on this book. The amount of research that went into it is astonishing and the writing (like on ENY) is crisp, engaging, and full of the tiny, quirky details that breathe life into the city's history. "Addictive read" is not hyperbole. Minutes after my copy was delivered, my husband took it out of my hands and started reading. When he accidentally left it unintended, my middle-school-age son picked it up and read it cover to cover. He took it into school to show his history teacher and then she devoured it. Highly recommend!

ARRIVE TRES VITE ET DANS UN BON ETAT. SUPER CONTENTE.

An excellent addition to my history of NYC collection. This is such a beautiful, informative book... I can't believe how inexpensively I was able to purchase it. Fantastic!

A superb book for anyone interested in NYC history, or indeed the history of America. It looks like a coffee table book, large format and lots of pictures, so much indeed that it took me a weekend to 'flick' through it. The revelation is that the text, of which there is much, is hugely informative and demonstrates not only considerable research but a real love of the city and its people. A valuable addition to anyone's NY library.

If you like books of historical photographs, especially if you know New York City, you will love this book. The photo selection is excellent and covers the history of New York very well. The text is an excellent account of the story of New York, especially the waves of immigrants that made New York what it is today.

An excellent book with interesting text and illustrations that go a long way to recreate the period. A most attractice publication.