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Title: At Sea in the City: New York from the Water's Edge by William Kornblum, Pete Hamill, Oliver Williams ISBN: 1-56512-265-8 Publisher: Algonquin Books Pub. Date: May, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.75 (4 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Thoroughly enjoyable
Comment: This is a delightful view of some of the Big Apple's waterfront. William Kornblum writes well, and I am pleased to meet the family, friends, and acquaintances of his journey. Having explored much of our city, and having studied many of the coasts from opposite shorelines, I nevertheless learned much from Kornblum's views from his catboat. I also enjoyed his flash-backs, particularly his days as a youth working at the Transit Mix dock. As another reader noted, the book has a few errors that should have been caught. The A train travels neither through The Bronx nor over Williamsburg Bridge (p. 91). In Red Hook, the parish school is within the Brooklyn diocese, not archdiocese (p. 122). When I find errors on topics I know well, I begin to worry that the publishing industry has a problem with fact-checking in non-fiction. Yet, I must say that this book is a thoroughly enjoyable meeting of humans, views, and story. I recommend this book as a gift.
Rating: 3
Summary: A good read, but....
Comment: This is the account of a sailboat cruise, but rather than crossing an ocean the author travels maybe 40 miles from home, into the maelstrom that is NY harbor. It's an interesting book, sort of, but I expected more history of the harbor, more about what the place is, and less of the author's personal experience.
I expected the former thanks to a review in the NY Times, I think -- some newspaper, anyway -- that suggested it was less an ecological than an historical journey. Without this preconception, I probably would have liked the book more. If you're from NYC, it's worth a read, but there are many better sailing accounts if you want hairy-chested adventure, or to learn something about sailing in general. There are also better books about ecology of the shoreline.
But the style is pleasant and the author seems like a man who would be an enjoyable sailing companion. That's worth three stars.
Rating: 3
Summary: Charming and pleasant, but a bit slight
Comment: The author, a sociology professor at City University of New York, was raised in the Big Apple and has lived most of his life in the area. In 1979 he bought a 24-foot New England catboat, built on Cape Cod in 1910, and proceeded to fix it and sail it around the New York area.
With this book he presents a portrait -- and sketchy history -- of the city from an angle few people know it. Structuring the story as a fairly continuous though interrupted sail from his home in Long Beach, around the southern tip of Rockaway and into Jamaica Bay, then into Upper New York Bay and the East River, and ultimately to Long Island Sound, Kornblum offers both close-up looks at the water and shoreline, and their past history.
The approach is light and pleasant: Few stories -- whether of the freezing disaster of the privateer "Castel Del Rey" in New York harbor in 1704, knowledgeable black sailors impressed by the British Navy in the War of 1812 and jailed in England for refusing to serve against the US, various ferry disasters, or the vagaries of Robert Moses -- last more than a page or three. The only sections where Kornblum lingers are in Jamaica Bay (its environmental degradation and return), and the dockside concrete industry that built New York's towers and for which the author worked as a kid. Manhattan itself is quickly bypassed though given a loving nod, and there is no venturing into the Hudson side.
In the typo sweepstakes, the book does all right, although it says "mechanical break" on p. 156 when "brake" was meant, and I believe I saw an unintended sentence fragment on p. 143. Most egregious, the great A.J. Liebling is identified on p. 103 as "Libeling" (though the name is correct in the bibliography)! A pity there apparently are youthful editors (I don't suppose there is such a thing as a proofreader in publishing anymore) who do not know this great journalist's work backward and forward.
Another ominous development -- to this reader, anyway -- is that the lovely cover photograph is an unreal composite. Different photographers are credited for different portions of it. I find this vaguely disturbing.
The writing is definitely four-star quality or better. Here's my favorite passage: "Up another shadowy bend stood two snowy egrets, with their outrageous yellow boots and platinum punk haircuts. How chic, these mudbank sushi bars. The egrets were spearing for sand bugs, moving along the edge of the marsh with the herky giant steps of students at a party stepping over empty beer cans."
I give the book only three stars because it is slight. Probably an excellent gift for the average non-reader who happens to love sailing or New York City, or the casual reader who knows little about either, but I would have liked to know more.
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Title: Heartbeats in the Muck by John Waldman ISBN: 1558217207 Publisher: The Lyons Press Pub. Date: 01 January, 2000 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Unearthing Gotham: The Archaeology of New York City by Diana Dizerega Wall, Anne-Marie E. Cantwell ISBN: 0300084153 Publisher: Yale Univ Pr Pub. Date: 01 September, 2001 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
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Title: Environmental Archaeology : Principles and Practice by Dena F. Dincauze ISBN: 0521310776 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 17 August, 2000 List Price(USD): $40.00 |
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Title: The Other Islands of New York City: A History and Guide (Second Edition) by Sharon Seitz, Stuart Miller ISBN: 0881505021 Publisher: Countryman Pr Pub. Date: June, 2001 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: Manhattan Water-Bound: Manhattan's Waterfront from the Seventeenth Century to the Present by Ann L. Buttenwieser, Robert A. M. Stern ISBN: 0815628013 Publisher: Syracuse University Press Pub. Date: August, 1999 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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