“Anything of even mildly antiquarian or historic interest was the target of destruction, and anyone who deplored the way the city was remaking itself from a sleepy seaport into a bustling capital of finance was regarded as a hopeless sentimentalist.” — Stephen Birmingham Copy Share Image
“New York horses were driven until they expired, and as many as a hundred horses collapsed daily in the streets. It was often a… — Stephen Birmingham Copy Share Image
“also introduced another controversial feature—an elevator, described as a “perpendicular railway intersecting each story.” Theretofore, elevators had been installed only in a few of… — Stephen Birmingham Copy Share Image
What is known as success assumes nearly as many aliases as there are those who seek it. — Stephen Birmingham Copy Share Image
“New York, in the late nineteenth century, was also an astonishingly dirty city for a variety of reasons. Only about half of New York’s… — Stephen Birmingham Copy Share Image
“How New York has fallen off during the last forty years! Its intellect and culture have been diluted and swamped by a great flood-tide… — Stephen Birmingham Copy Share Image
“Isabella Boyer Singer, the wife with whom Singer had spent most of his final years, in her claim to be the legal widow. Isabella… — Stephen Birmingham Copy Share Image
“seventeen rooms with six bathrooms and eight working fireplaces for $650. In 1884 these Dakota rents had seemed substantial. But the astonishing thing was… — Stephen Birmingham Copy Share Image
“Sophisticated New Yorkers complained that their city had none of the exuberance and spectacle of Paris—no Place de l’Étoile, no Place de la Concorde,… — Stephen Birmingham Copy Share Image
“when America entered the era of the automobile, there was a noticeable tendency for the affluent of American cities to build their homes on… — Stephen Birmingham Copy Share Image
“In the summer the whole family would take the night boat to Albany. You left in the evening and arrived in the morning. It… — Stephen Birmingham Copy Share Image
A great many people go after success simply for the shiny prizes it brings...And nowhere is it pursued more ardently than in the city… — Stephen Birmingham Copy Share Image
“Anything of even mildly antiquarian or historic interest was the target of destruction, and anyone who deplored the way the city was remaking itself… — Stephen Birmingham Copy Share Image
