This is an excellent work that details the history of the Empire State Building. I was a bit surprised to find how much the author managed to pack into my paperback. Everything from skyscraper height restrictions to land leases and modern restructuring of ownership for tax purposes (and all the "interesting" stuff in between). If you buy this book and you're not from New York, do yourself a favor and get a map of the area. So you can follow along in the early chapters.

I bought this book shortly after a trip to NYC in 2000, and found it to be an excellent history of one of the Big Apple's architectural jewels, the Empire State Building. It is full of intrigue, history, great anecdotes and one-of-a-kind photographs. If you're a visitor to Manhattan or a local resident, you owe it to yourself to read this book.

This is not a coffee table book of glossy color photographs of this most striking building. Nor is it a dry recitation of architectural, engineering and construction quantities, concepts and terms. Rather, it is a seriously researched and entertainingly written history of the time, events and personalities leading to the conception and creation of the world's most famous skyscraper. Tauranac successfully tackles the challenge of explaining how this mere assemblage of steel and stone has attained such mystical status and continues, 70 years later, to attract admirers. This is a "must read" for the serious ESB fan, or for anyone interested in how this architectural icon was created.

Ever wonder what it might have been like to live amongst New York City's upper-class of society, oh say, about a century ago? Well then, you're in luck, because this book, with its very nice pictures and well-written copy, is capable of providing just such a trip back in time!

I have been using John Tauranac's Manhattan Street Atlas and it is very helpful, but flawed. The binding is such, that the book cannot be fully opened, so information in the center cannot be retrieved, unless one cracks-open the binding.This is the most annoying flaw. Also, many things were omitted. For example, 515 Madison Ave. is the DuMont Building, but no mention is made of that fact. I had to research that building over the Internet to get it's name.Other interesting buildings go un-named,too. I was surprised that the monument where Peter Minuet supposedly sold Manhattan for $24 in Inwood Hill Park, is also omitted; as are other interesting monuments. Finally, I'd like buildings under construction to be named,e.g. Bloomberg Tower, etc. Overall, it's the best detailed guide to Manhattan out there, and I recommend it.

I picked this up along with the latest Flashmaps edition of Manhattan. I returned the Flashmaps book the next day. This little book is all a New Yorker or visitor needs to get around town. I especially liked the essays at the beginning. The development of the city's street plan is fascinating and concise. I can recommend the atlas highly.

This book is perfect for your suitcase on your next trip back to Manhattan. Remember those ConEd chimneys on the East River? They're threre. And The Gramercy Park Hotel with its knotty pine lobby? That's there, too. This little volume was designed for New York the way New Yorkers see it -- on foot. It's also great for sitting by the fire in San Francisco (as I am now) and remembering where you were and who you knew in New York. The Lowell Hotel is my favorite [where F. Scott Fitagerald once lived].

I would not recommend this book for anyone who hasn't lived in New York. I live here and I expected a lot more than I got. After 9/11 I wanted to get more photographic representations of New York City. What I got were inferior photographs and an uninteresting lesson in architecture. Captions to the photographs gave explanations about the design of the building which was of little value. For example the name of the developer, architect, and designer. When multiple buildings were in the picture, as was often the case, the description of each building was hard to follow. There should have been a small schematic with numbers to allow easier interpretation.

Most importantly however, the pictures were nowhere near as good as I would have hoped. Many pictures were taken at dusk and sunset hours and they came out dark. The shadows, especially of pictures in lower Manhattan are long and dilute the quality of the pictures. Many shots of the World Trade Center and their neighboring Battery Park City and WFC are pretty poor. There is an overhead shot of the WTC that is taken at dusk and the smaller buildings are invisible. No pictures were taken at night, when the city has a new life. There were no pictures of Times Square, only one picture where Madison Squeare Garden is partly in the background, no pictures of South Street Seaport (which would come out well if taking a picture of Manhattan from Brooklyn), and many of the pictures were of obscure buildings that most people don't look at.

As a native New Yorker I can appreciate seeing some of the unique buildings and architecture, but as far as a book for sights and photographs there is much to be desired. It almost seems that the photographer just took some pictures and put them together, almost haphazardly. The book was definitely not worth what I paid for it. They could have done so much more with the concept of aerial photos, but I was left disappointed.

I bought this book because of my adoration for the City of New York, and the beautiful picture on the front. Those looking for an in-depth history of NYC or more of a "hands-on" book, should look elsewhere. This book provides what the title suggests. It is a brief introduction to the vast world that is New York City. The photography is beautiful, although sometimes blurry at edges. There are small paragraphs explaining what you are looking at. Most of the main attractions are covered (Empire State Building, Central Park, Harlem, Greenwich Village, etc), as well as some others that I didn't know about, but had my eyes opened to. I will definitely be more prepared and educated as I go to NYC next time. The only complaint is that most of the coverage is of Manhattan, and it's attractions and not so much of the other parts of New York, as the book suggests. This was fine by me, as I was mostly interested in Manhattan anyway, but could mislead others. I would highly recommend this book if you like the city of New York, or are planning a trip there. This could be a great supplement as it gives you a different view of the city, one that you can't get just by being there. A view from the air.

if you live in or if you love new york you must have this book that's enough