Edwin G. Burrows (1) (1943–2018)

On cold winter afternoons when I was a child, we’d pile out of school at recess and run to the mounds of snow that grew next to the skating rink built in our school yard. We’d head for the top of the snow and push anyone behind us to the bottom. We’d throw snowballs, we’d shout and heckle those weaker souls who would aspire to the top. “I’m the king of the castle,” we’d sing, “and you’re the dirty rascal.” Over and over and over we’d sing until the school bell rang and sullenly we’d troop back into the classrooms.

I don’t know who invented that ditty, but it has stuck with me for more than a half century.

“I’m the king of the castle and you’re dirty rascal.”

I was reminded of it as I quaffed the remaining pages of Mike Wallace’s second instalment to his great history of New York, “Greater Gotham: A History of New York City from 1898 to 1919.”

It isn’t really just a history of a city in those years. Think of a fat man in a very small suit bursting at the buttons in the front, rolls of fat peeking out along the belt line, his jowls drooping over the shirt collar. No. Many of Wallace’s tales begin in the years leading up to the period, focus on places far from New York, and encompass the sometimes well-meaning actions of actors far from the stage. The book is like a holy compression of personalities, of waves of migrants, and causes, and more acronyms than I care to remember.

His unifying theme is the consolidation of the boroughs which opens the story and the consolidation of business. Perhaps that is the easiest way into the story, how capitalists through merger and buyout and stock-watering gathered up the competition into massive trusts toward the end of the 19th and into the early 20th centuries and New York was the grand stage.

Beginning with the railroads, and continuing with the oil interests, the steel interests, the sugar interests, and so many more. How they hated competition. It was such a drag on profits. It happened with the expansion of public transit, the modernization of the docks, and it happened with labour, the awakening of women’s rights, and the plight of black New Yorkers who founded a citadel in Haarlem.

The brewers united. The elites built racetracks and spurred the gambling habits of a generation of migrants and the unemployable. And then there was the coopting of opium, heroin, and cocaine into the nascent drug industry. So many of these drugs were used in patent medicines, then made acceptable with the professionalization of medicine, and public hospitals.

And with each wave of immigrants came new groups to hate and despise and grouse about. The Irish, the East European Jews, and the waves of Italians, Italians who dug the water tunnels, the subways, the passenger train and freight train tunnels that criss-crossed underneath the growing skyscrapers.

And at the bottom of the heap, the blacks who moved in from the south and later from the Caribbean.

How contemporary the howls against the dirty and dangerous immigrants this book sound today. The only difference being that when the Italians came to town there were massive public works to build, little automation in the factories, and booming consumer demand. If those same immigrants arrived today they would be blasted for taking away the jobs of honest Americans.

“I’m the king of the castle...” etc., etc., etc.

Blacks returning from fighting WWI were spat on and even lynched on burning crosses. They were kept out of polite company and given only the worst jobs. You think it’s dangerous for a black man on the streets of America today?. Ask Marcus Garvey, or W.E.B. Du Bois what it was like in 1898.

There is a malignancy in American society that did not begin with Donald Trump, the Tea Party, or Ronald Reagan. The tendency to demean the accomplishments of collective action like modernizing housing regulations, or chlorinating the water, or inoculating children against infectious diseases.

Or giving women the vote, or limiting the work day, or devising a progressive tax code, or outlawing child labour, or providing for unemployment insurance.

It is a malignancy built into human nature that says we will never fully trust each other or completely share what we have built together. And it is not necessarily an American thing. It is a human thing that says, as Teddy Roosevelt believed, that you must shed your individuality to become one of us and even if you do, I am still the king of the castle. Become American and you will be worthy but never assume that you deserve it.… (més)

To the people who only gave this book two stars: I wish you would write a review and let us know why!

I read this book over a lazy summer, and have never been more fascinated by a work of non-fiction. Burrows and Wallace profile the city from its "discovery" by white men to the bustle of the 1890s. They discuss almost every conceivable aspect of the city with humour and insightful research, providing us with astonishing statistics, fascinating quotes from the time, and a comprehensive scope that reaches from the aristocracy to the slums. Individual readers will have their own areas that could have been further researched, but truthfully this is a truly absorbing read. (And, since the book at least touches on every aspect of the city's history, it's a good starting point to find areas for more specialised reading.)

More so than just the history of one city, this book is a history of trade, urban life, culture and really America as a whole. It is filled with colourful personalities, uplifting stories and tragedies. In some areas, it can be quite academic with its catalogues and investigations of history, but I'm the kind of person who loves that. Better to be ambitious than lazy, I say!

I can't wait for the promised sequel to this book (chronicling the 20th century).… (més)

The author does a good job of covering this neglected subject, including the various places of imprisonment- notorious prisoner ships, sugar houses, etc. I also appreciated the discussion of why prisoner exchange agreements failed, and the various motivations each side had for wanting (or not wanting) to exchange prisoners. A final chapter is devoted to the reasons for America's shameful neglect in creating a conspicuous monument for their fighting men over the decades. In the end, however, no one seriously disputes the soldiers in captivity suffered dreadfully.

With such a fascinating subject, effective prose should make for a page turning work. However, I simply didn't find his writing style compelling.… (més)

There's nothing small about this book, including the amount of enjoyment it generates, and information it provides. Unquestionably, it is a Big Read -- 1200 pages in print, and 52 hours in audiobook form. But it is a delight to read, which makes the length a plus, not a minus. The book talks of a period when New York City was becoming the center of the nation, and even of the world, across a vast range of activities. It is exciting and amusing. As a native New Yorker, I suppose I was especially vulnerable to loving this book, but a lot of other readers have done so too.… (més)