City of Dreams

Starred review from August 15, 2016
Anbinder (Five Points), a professor of history at George Washington University, traces the history of New York City’s immigrant groups from the earliest Dutch settlers to the waves of Caribbean and Chinese immigrants who have more recently made their mark on the city, spinning a tale of tragedy and triumph that comes with political teeth. Anbinder adeptly shows that the same fears that dominate 21st-century debates on immigration were alive and well in earlier eras, arguing persuasively that 19th-century immigrant communities were far more insular and impregnable than their present-day counterparts. In fact, so discrete were these ethnic neighborhoods that a Jew leaving the familiar confines of the Lower East Side or an Italian venturing north of Washington Square was said to be “going to America.” Anbinder is a master at taking a history with which many readers will be familiar—tenement houses, temperance societies, slums—and making it new, strange, and heartbreakingly vivid. The stories of individuals, including those of the entrepreneurial Steinway brothers and the tragic poet Pasquale D’Angelo, are undeniably compelling, but it’s Anbinder’s stunning image of New York as a true city of immigrants that captures the imagination. Agent: Jill Grinberg, Jill Grinberg Literary.

From the Dutch to the British, featuring a concentration on the waves of Irish and German in the late 19th century, this thoroughgoing work offers a host of immigrant sagas that were integral to the creation of the New York City cauldron.Proceeding with grand themes such as "Anglicization," "War," "Liberty," and "Refuge," Anbinder (History/George Washington Univ.; Five Points: The Nineteenth-Century New York City Neighborhood that Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections and Became the World's Most Notorious Slum, 2001, etc.) impressively conveys the sense of a city truly forged by the people who were determined to live and work there. He uses personal stories--e.g., by those who made the arduous ocean crossing under horrendous conditions--as well as contemporary maps that illustrate the delineation of neighborhoods by ethnicity, diagrams of the early tenement flats, and charts that record the incredible fluctuating numbers. For example, 950,000 Irish immigrants arrived in New York during the great famine years of the mid-1840s-1850s. Anbinder concentrates on the nitty-gritty details of these difficult early lives in America: their arrival at the immigration and inspection station, harassment by "runners" who tried to swindle them out of their money and luggage, groupings into neighborhoods and wards, overcrowded living conditions in squalid tenement buildings inhabited by most of the poorest new arrivals, and the kinds of jobs the unskilled gravitated toward, including household servants, manual laborers, street peddlers, and grocers. The author also examines the political proclivities of the newcomers--e.g., the support of the crooked Tweed Ring, the "Irish menace," and recalcitrant Democrats who kept the vote from African-Americans. On the other hand, the tension between immigrants and nativists led to the rise of the Know Nothing Party and the increasing restrictions on immigration, especially against the Chinese. Furthermore, Anbinder gives plenty of room for the stories of the Jews, Italians, African-Americans, Dominicans, and others. An endlessly fascinating kaleidoscope of American history. A fantastic historical resource. COPYRIGHT(1) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from October 1, 2016

Before 1875, there were no restrictions on U.S. immigration. Those arriving in New York were checked for medical conditions and quarantined if necessary but otherwise entered the city to find livelihoods and communities, or to move West. Historian Anbinder (Five Points) focuses on certain periods of New York's immigration history, selecting eras with rich histories that helped build the city's multicultural landscape. Beginning with the founding of New Amsterdam as a Dutch colony in the 1700s, Anbinder explains the transition to English rule as the territory became known as New York. Even as early as 1700, real estate costs could be exorbitant, with many residents wanting to live in "desirable" areas. Anbinder's research is thorough and thoughtful; he doesn't gloss over difficulties, ethnic clashes, racism, slavery, or poverty. Rather, he explores the challenges of assimilation and what gets lost in the process of generations becoming "Americanized" through stories of prominent New Yorkers and more typical immigrant experiences. The author covers a lot of ground in readable and accessible prose that captures how the United States has become a nation of multifaceted cultures. VERDICT Essential for civic-minded readers, history buffs, fans of New York, and public and academic libraries.--Candice Kail, Columbia Univ. Libs., New York

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