The Creative Destruction of
Manhattan, 1900-1940
Max Page
It'll be a great place if
they ever finish it - 0. Henry wrote I about New York City. This laconic remark captures
the relentlessly transitory character of New York, and it points toward Max Page's
synthetic perspective. Against the prevailing motif of a naturally expanding metropolis,
Page argues that the early-twentieth-century city was dominated by the politics of
destruction and rebuilding that became the hallmark of modern urbanism.
The oxymoron "creative
destruction" suggests the tensions that are at the heart of urban life: between
stability and change, between particular places and undifferentiated spaces, between
market forces and planning controls, and between the "natural" and
"unnatural" in city growth. Page investigates these cultural counterweights
through case studies of Manhattan's development, with depictions ranging from private real
estate development along Fifth Avenue to Jacob Riis's slum clearance efforts on the Lower
East Side, from the elimination of street trees to the efforts to save City Hall from
demolition. In these examples some New Yorkers celebrate planning by destruction or marvel
at the domestication of the natural environment, while others decry the devastation of
their homes and lament the passing of the city's architectural heritage. A central
question in each case is the role of the past in the shaping of collective memory
which buildings are preserved? which trees are cut down? which fragments are
enshrined in museums? Contrary to the popular sense of New York as an historical city, the
past-as recalled by powerful citizens was, in fact, at the heart of defining how the
city would be built.
Beautifully illustrated and
written in clear, engaging prose, The Creative Destruction of Manhattan offers a new way
of viewing the development of the American city.
Max Page is assistant
professor of history and director of the Heritage Preservation Program at Georgia State
University.
An excellent, multifaceted
analysis of the process of urban development.- DAVID SCHUYLER
248 pages