Jackson, editor of the celebrated Encyclopedia of New York City,
and Dunbar, founder of the CITYterm program (an academic program for high school students), embrace an enormous range of writing about Gotham in this historical anthology. If the tension between commerce and culture is not unique to New York, the editors state at the outset, the city's special role is to test the tension between assimilation and diversity, not to mention that between public and private. Their annotations find these and other themes in a grand variety of writings, from an account of Henry Hudson's voyage in 1611 to one of the September 11 terrorist attacks by John P. Avlon, former chief speechwriter and deputy communications director to Mayor Giuliani; Avlon was responsible for writing more than 400 eulogies for city workers. Aside from many familiar names, like Poe, Alger, Wharton, Kazin, Kempton and Ozick, this massive selection includes an excerpt from Thomas Mun's England's Treasure by Forraign Trade (1664), an anonymous call to "Get the Mafia and Cops Out of Gay Bars" and, of course, Charles Loring Blaze's "The Street Life of Rats" (1872). The sheer amount of out-of-the-way text and lore among these 158 pieces is worth the price of admission; the city comes alive through the texts it has produced. (Oct.)
