The Skyscraper and the City: The Woolworth Building and the Making of Modern New York

The Skyscraper and the City: The Woolworth Building and the Making of Modern New York. By Gail Fenske. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008, xii + 399 pp. Illustrations, photographs, notes, index. Cloth, $65.00. ISBN: 978-0-226-24141-8.

Reviewed by Peter Eisenstadt

There doesn't seem to be a particular name for books about specific buildings or structures- "edificeographies," perhaps- with insights drawn from the fields of architecture, business, and general political and cultural history, but it is a flourishing genre. Harvard University Press, for example, has published a delightful series of short books, under the series title "Wonders of the World," each devoted to a different world wonder, ranging from the Parthenon to Westminster Abbey. New York City's many notable structures have not been lacking in books of this sort, including both bright celebrations (the Brooklyn Bridge, the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building) and dark elegies and obituaries (Pennsylvania Station, the World Trade Center). But perhaps the best book ever devoted to a particular New York City building is Gail Fenske's meticulously researched and exquisitely illustrated history of...