- Paperback: 432 pages
- Publisher: FSG Adult (Oct 1 2003)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0374528993
- ISBN-13: 978-0374528997
- Product Dimensions: 20.9 x 13.9 x 3.2 cm
- Shipping Weight: 567 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #188,425 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
There are very few classics in the field of pop culture--the academic stuff tends to be too dry and the fun stuff is too quickly dated. This book by Luc Sante is the exception--in fluid prose liberally sprinkled with astute metaphors, Sante tells the story of New York's Lower East Side, circa 1840-1920. The personal histories of criminals, prostitutes, losers, and swindlers bring to life the social and statistical history that the author has meticulously researched. Not limiting himself to the usual sources, Sante finds his history in old copies of Police Gazette as well as actual police, fire, and social service records. Above all, what really makes this book work is the writing, which brings to life a culture of the streets that continues to form a silent influence on our contemporary popular culture.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
In his first book, freelance writer Sante tours the underside of Manhattan's underclass circa 1840-1919. Clarifying his territory, he notes that "New York is incarnated by Manhattan (the other boroughs . . . are merely adjuncts)." Sante's bad old days are populated with lethal saloon keepers, thieves, whores, gamblers, pseudo-reformers, Tammany Hall politics, crooked cops et al. Capital of the night is the Bowery, center of the "sporting life"; bohemia encompasses the likes of short story writer O. Henry, a one-time embezzler from Texas, plus ethnic enclaves (with the Jewish and Slavic bohemians singled out as the most argumentative). East Side, West Side, semi-rural uptown, wide-open downtown, 19th-century Manhattan is presented as the realm of danger and pleasure. "The city was like this a century ago, and it remains so in the present," maintains an author who sees his Manhattan as seamy, seedy and sinister.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
LONG, NARROW MANHATTAN ISLAND SITS IN THE BAY, AMONG OTHER ISLANDS, OUTCROPPINGS, FLATLANDS, LIKE A SILHOUETTE OF A RIGHT whale navigating a rocky passage; on the area map, among blank-faced formations all like itself colored yellow for density of population, it lies like a smelt in a pan. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
LONG, NARROW MANHATTAN ISLAND SITS IN THE BAY, AMONG OTHER ISLANDS, OUTCROPPINGS, FLATLANDS, LIKE A SILHOUETTE OF A RIGHT whale navigating a rocky passage; on the area map, among blank-faced formations all like itself colored yellow for density of population, it lies like a smelt in a pan. Read the first page
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Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
REALLY cool,
By
This review is from: Low Life (Paperback)
Its just a cool book about old new york. All the sleeze and scum and drugs and prostitution and raw sewage of society is here to learn about. Learn about this amazing city before it became the glorious place with million dollar condo's and uppedy stores on 57th Street.
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Ride of Your Life,
By
This review is from: Low Life (Paperback)
I have read this book four times in the last ten years or so. Once for research, the last three times for entertainment. Don't let "critics", who complain that Luc Sante's sources are questionable, prevent you from reading this book. Not every detail might be EXACTLY right; even when the comments are of doubtful origin, there's no doubt that they are valuable to students, first-timers and long-timers, to the subject of New York's history. This is not a scholarly textbook and it doesn't claim to be. Sante's style, and the illustrations that pepper the book, evoke the dark world of old New York. You'll find this book to be fascinating, provocative, and, in my case, inspirational. After I read this book, I began writing my novel called THE FIVE POINTS, which has recently been published. Thank you, Mr. Sante.
5.0 out of 5 stars
The prose of the underside of the city...,
By
This review is from: Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York (Paperback)
Luc Sante has a poetic drift about him and the book is written in that style. In the afterward to the newest printing he describes how he fell in love with the decay of the city during the period of time when he lived there. Only at the time he didn't really recognize it as decay but as living history entombed in the rubble.It was only after the city had become a playground for the elite that it became apparent that what he loved was actually what was the underside. In other words, he's an artist and he sees beauty where others see only gloom, doom and obsolesence. From this perspective, then, he takes on a tour of those dregs of society upon which any society is built, if not running from those things then at least providing a place where they can in fact fall. Granted, this is thick with names and facts and tidbits all meshed into one composite whole, as if he was afraid to forget to include any of his wonderful research. It is a bit busy but it's easy to overlook because it is so much fun. Gangs of New York finds influence here and books such as The Alienist revel in this part of city life too often overlooked.
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