Gotham Rising: New York in the 1930s

308 Pages·2016·6.147 MB·English

by  Jules Stewart

Jules Stewart is a journalist, historian and author. He was born in New
York where his career took him from university lecturer to Yellow Cab driver.
His books include Madrid: The History; Albert: A Life; The Kaiser’s Mission to
Kabul; On Afghanistan’s Plains: The Story of Britain’s Afghan Wars (all published
by I.B.Tauris); Crimson Snow: Britain’s First Disaster in Afghanistan; The Savage
Border: The Story of the North-West Frontier; Spying for the Raj: The Pundits
and the Mapping of the Himalaya and The Khyber Rifles: From the British Raj
to Al Qaeda. He lives in London.
‘From its opening irreverent quotations from John Steinbeck and E. B. White,
Jules Stewart’s Gotham Rising: New York in the 1930s offers a roguish romp
through a remarkable decade that in many ways still defines much about the
great American metropolis. So often it seems to take a visitor from foreign
shores to see New York in all its glory, and to marvel at the contradictions
and contrasts that New Yorkers take for granted – as, for instance, a fervently
religious Jewish Sabbath observance around the corner from a Hell’s Angels
clubhouse. As Stewart’s eye sweeps across the panorama of 1930s New York,
his attention is caught equally by the glories of big bands and the depredations
of organized crime providing the jazz clubs’ bootleg whiskey; the Metropolitan
Opera and the Stork Club and the striking taxi-cab drivers inconveniencing
their patrons; high society at the Waldorf-Astoria and desperate victims of
the Great Depression. The Harlem Renaissance, Greenwich Village bohemia,
Tammany Hall politics, the Empire State Building, Rockefeller Center, and all
the larger-than-life figures directing so much of the action – it’s an amazing
story, well worth telling. And, oh yes, it all really happened.’
Anthony W. Robins
author of New York Art Deco: A Guide to Gotham’s Jazz Age Architecture
‘Filled with enticing details and vivid portraits of the titans who drove New
York in the 1930s, Gotham Rising is a delightful caper through one of the
city’s most dynamic eras. Jules Stewart deftly weaves history with heroes and
villains, with fascinating tales of La Guardia, FDR and Robert Moses, as well
as the men who built the Empire State Building and Rockefeller Center.’
Eric Schmitt
Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times correspondent
‘How ironic that the decade following the Wall Street Crash should be the
one which made the city what it is today. The book is a terrific read, bursting
at the seams with beguiling stories and extraordinary facts. If you want to
know how New York became New York, this is the book for you. An inspir-
ing and engrossing work which has so much to tell us about what is still the
greatest city on earth, at the same accounting for so much about its present
state. In many ways, this is America in essence – told from the right time
and the right place.’
Paul Strathern
author of The Medici
Gotham
Rising
New York in the 1930s
Jules Stewart
Published in 2016 by
I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd
London • New York
www.ibtauris.com
Copyright © 2016 Jules Stewart
Copyright Foreword © Amor Towles
The right of Jules Stewart to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the
author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may
not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form
or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the
prior written permission of the publisher.
Every attempt has been made to gain permission for the use of the images in this book. Any
omissions will be rectified in future editions.
References to websites were correct at the time of writing.
ISBN: 978 1 78453 529 2
eISBN: 978 1 78672 043 6
ePDF: 978 1 78673 043 5
A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available
Endpapers: A view of Times Square at the intersection of Broadway and 7th Avenue, New
York City, New York, 1937. (Photo by P.L. Sperr/Getty Images)
Text design, typesetting and eBook by Tetragon, London
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Foreword by Amor Towles xi
Acknowledgements xxiii
Introduction 1
1. Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? 7
2. The Little Flower and Goliath 21
3. Trouble in the Streets 31
4. ‘I can’t figger what dis city is comin’ to’ 47
5. All That Jazz 77
6. Gotham Gets a Facelift 93
7. The Thing about Skyscrapers 113
8. Seventy-Seventh Floor, Please 129
9. Anything You Can Do 141
10. You’re the Top 157
11. They All Laughed at Rockefeller Center 173
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Gotham RisinG
12. Village Life 191
13. Huddled Masses Yearning to Breathe Free 209
Notes 231
Bibliography 247
Images Section 253
Index 271
vi
List of iLLustrations
1. Protesters outside the Bank of United States during the Depression
(Library of Congress / Public Domain).
2. A street band in Yorkville, Upper Manhattan (Library of Congress /
Public Domain).
3. Federal Hall in Wall Street (Public Domain).
4. Fiorello La Guardia and Robert Moses (photo by Bob Mortimer/NY
Daily News Archive via Getty Images).
5. Newspaper columnist Walter Winchell and W. C. Fields (Public
Domain).
6. Police at the scene of a gangland murder (US National Records and
Archives Administration / Public Domain).
7. Boxer Jack Dempsey celebrates the end of Prohibition in 1933
(Bettmann/Getty Images).
8. Duke Ellington in his dressing room at the New York Paramount
Theater, a top venue for swing music (William P. Gottlieb/Ira and Leonore
S. Gershwin Fund Collection, Music Division, Library of Congress).
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Gotham RisinG
9. The view of the Chrysler Building from the Empire State Building
(Library of Congress / Public Domain).
10. The Waldorf-Astoria (courtesy of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel).
11. ‘Lunch break’ on the Waldorf-Astoria (courtesy of the Waldorf Astoria
Hotel).
12. Construction workers on the Waldorf-Astoria (courtesy of the
Waldorf Astoria Hotel).
13. Jewish merchants on the Lower East Side (Library of Congress /
Public Domain).
14. A Bowery restaurant (Berenice Abbott / New York Public Library /
Public Domain).
15. The 21 Club (courtesy of the 21 Club, New York / Belmond (UK)).
16. The jockeys of the 21 Club (courtesy of the 21 Club, New York /
Belmond (UK)).
17. Nightclub map of Harlem by Elmer Simms Campbell (copyright holder
unknown).
18. Jitterbug dancers (Library of Congress / Public Domain).
19. Grand Central Terminal (Royal Geographic Society).
20. The Third Avenue ‘El’ (Library of Congress / Public Domain).
21. New York tenements, 1934, by Marjorie Content (courtesy of Yale
University).
22. Manhattan in 1931 (Public Domain).
23. Refugee children and the Statue of Liberty (courtesy of the United
States Holocaust Memorial Museum).
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