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Gerard Koeppel

Digging the Urban Past: A Subterranean Panorama

Unearthing

Gotham: The Archaeology of New York City , by Anne-Marie Cantwell and Diana

diZerega Wall. Yale University Press, 374 pages, $39.95.

New York is a city that eats

its history. As soon as market forces decree that a neighborhood must be put to

a new use, developers and their architects swoop in to Read More

Sex and the City Circa 1890: Echoes of Today’s Daily Dish

Gilded City: Scandal and Sensation in Turn-of-the-Century New York , by M.H. Dunlop. William Morrow, 296 pages, $25.

When the gulf between rich and poor is broadest, scandal blossoms. This was New York in the 1890′s: flush from a two-decade boom, stunned by a Wall Street panic early in 1893, spiraling into a century-ending depression. Read More

Dump It, Bury It, Ignore It: A City’s Rich Load of Refuse

Fat of the Land: Garbage in New York–The Last Two Hundred Years , by Benjamin Miller. Four Walls Eight Windows, 315 pages, $18.

Garbage is a problem for all people who stay put, especially those who live in close quarters on islands. For nearly 300 years, New Yorkers lived on one island, Manhattan; excepting Bronx Read More