On a dim winter afternoon, a young Irish immigrant opens the gas taps in his Brooklyn tenement. He is determined to prove--to the subway bosses who have recently fired him, to his badgering, pregnant wife--"that the hours of his life belong to himself alone." In the aftermath of the fire that follows, Sister St. Savior, an aging nun, a Little Sister of the Sick Poor, appears, unbidden, to direct the way forward for his widow and his unborn child....

On the streets of 1970s Brooklyn, money is exchanged, belongings surrendered, power asserted. The rules appear obvious at first, but in memory’s prism, criminals and victims may seem to trade places. The voices of the past may seem to rise and gather as if in harmony, then make war with one another. A street may seem to crack open and reveal what lies behind its glimmering facade. None who lived through it are ever permitted to forget.

Upending the environmentalist viewpoint that urban areas are "anti-green," New Yorker staff writer David Owen argues that sustainability is achieved in areas like New York City while open space, backyard compost heaps, locavorism and high-tech gadgetry like solar panels and triple-paned windows are formulas for wasteful sprawl and green-washed consumerism.

Who is Ruth McBride Jordan? A self-declared "light-skinned" woman evasive about her ethnicity, yet steadfast in her love for her twelve children. James McBridge, journalist, musician and son, explores his mother's past, as well as his own upbringing and heritage, in a poignant and powerful memoir.

An audacious jewel heist. A murdered actress. A killer case for NYPD Red. In a city where crime never sleeps, NYPD Red is the elite task force called in only when a case involves the rich, famous, and connected. Detective Zach Jordan and his partner, Kylie MacDonald--the woman who broke his heart at the police academy--are the best of the best, brilliant and tireless investigators who will stop at nothing to catch a criminal, even if it means antagonizing...

Focuses on the year in the life of a group of friends in New York's East Village. The "bohemians" live carefree lives of art, music, sex, and drugs. It is carefree until Mark, an aspiring filmmaker, and Roger, an aspiring songwriter, find out they owe a year's rent to Benny. Benny is a former friend who had promised them free rent when he married the landlord's daughter. Roger has also attracted the attention of his downstairs neighbor, Mimi. Mark's...

Examines New York City as a paradigmatic example of the tensions between privatization and public uses of space in the contemporary U.S. Focusing on the liberating promise of public space, The Beach Beneath the Streets examines the activist struggles of communities in New York City-queer youth of color, gardeners, cyclists, and anti-gentrification activists-as they transform streets, piers, and vacant lots into everyday sites for autonomy, imagination,...

A sweeping account of the anarchists who terrorized the streets of New York and the detective duo who transformed policing to meet the threat--a tale of fanaticism, forensic science, and dynamite from the bestselling author of The Ghost Map Steven Johnson’s engrossing account of the epic struggle between the anarchist movement and the emerging surveillance state stretches around the world and between two centuries--from Alfred Nobel’s invention...

"After a video showing the death of her son, Eric Garner, at the hands of New York City police officers on Staten Island went viral, Gwen Carr's life changed forever. The illegal chokehold that took Eric's life has been seared into the public consciousness as the large Black man struggled to breathe while a White policeman held him down on a hot concrete sidewalk. His death set the tone for a new normal in which young Black men and women now automatically...

"Charles and Lily, James and Nan. They meet in Greenwich Village in 1963 when Charles and James are jointly hired to steward the historic Third Presbyterian Church through turbulent times. Their personal differences however, threaten to tear them apart. Charles is destined to succeed his father as an esteemed professor of history at Harvard, until an unorthodox lecture about faith leads him to ministry. How then, can he fall in love with Lily--fiercely...