Never built New York

About this book

New York towers among world capitals, but they city we know might have never reached even more stellar heights, or burrowed into more destructive depths, had the ideas pictured in the minds of its greatest dreamers progressed beyond the drawing board and taken form in stone, steel, and glass. What is wonderfully elegant and grand might easily have been ingloriously grandiose; what is blandly remarkable might have been delightfully provocative or humanely inspiring. Nearly 200 ambitious projects spanning 200 years encompass bridges, skyscrapers, mass-transit plans, parks, streets and highways, amusements, airports, schemes to fill in rivers and extend Manhattan, and much, much more. Included are unrealized visions for such landmarks as Central Park, Columbus Circle, Lincoln Center, the United Nations, Grand Central Terminal, the World Trade Center site, and many other locales in Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island. From the authors of Never Built Los Angeles, this hidden history--brimming with fact-filled and entertaining texts, as well as hundreds of sketches, renderings, prints, and models drawn from archives across the country--takes us on a thrilling journey through an alternative New York.