Gotham Unbound

Starred review from March 31, 2014
Describing an island estuary that became one of the world’s most densely populated cities, this fascinating, encyclopedic history views three centuries of continuous transformation of greater New York City through an ecological lens. Brooklyn-born Steinberg (Down to Earth), a professor of law and history at Case Western Reserve University, offers plenty of fodder for New Yorkers’ dinnertime chatter, whether it’s getting to the origins of place names like the Meadowlands or the surprisingly controversial nature of the street grid layout. But his broad vision tells a story of common rights and private property, land grants and landfills, drainage and dams, plumbing and garbage, eutrophication and mosquito control, politics and doublespeak, salt marshes and wetlands, and the deep ecological importance of the points where land meets sea. Steinberg contextualizes New York’s planning choices since the 1970s—when new land was still being created from trash as environmentalism began its rise—and the rise of hazards like heat waves and flooding, helping readers understand events like Hurricane Sandy as more inevitable than shocking. Furthermore, by examining conceptualizations of the green metropolis as ecologically efficient and analyzing how open-space projects are developed, Steinberg’s work strives to makes readers more thoughtful dwellers of the unique urban biome they have created. B&w illus.

Starred review from June 1, 2014
Environmental historian Steinberg (American Green, 2006) takes us to the Island of Many Hills, a teeming paradise rich in springs, marshes, forests, and wildlife. Four hundred years later, Mannahatta, now the borough of Manhattan, is utterly transformed. Steinberg believes that we will be more prepared for the future by knowing about New York's ecologically lush past and all the financial, social, and political imperatives behind the phenomenal engineering feats that eradicated it. The massive changes began with the Dutch, who zealously drained wetlands and decimated oyster reefs, followed by the English, who dumped filthy fill into the harbor to extend the land out to deep water where ships could dock. With eye-popping facts and wide-ranging commentary, Steinberg tracks the acceleration of drainage, deforestation, and land-making as well as the booming human population, the building of an ever-more elaborate infrastructure, and the monstrous production of waste. As skyscrapers rose, biodiversity plummeted. Here, too, are telling profiles of the men responsible for Greater New York's metamorphosis, from John Randel Jr., creator of the city's grid plan, to the infamous urban mastermind, Robert Moses. Assessment of Hurricane Sandy's devastation caps Steinberg's fascinating and cautionary unnatural history, a staggering epic of human will, might, and folly that affirms a crucial truth, the control of nature is an illusion. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)