Tenements, Towers & Trash: An Unconventional Illustrated History of New York City -- Julia Wertz, Hardcover

A New York Times Notable Book of 2017!

Here is New York, as you've never seen it before. A perfectly charming, sidesplittingly funny, intellectually entertaining illustrated history of the blocks, the buildings, and the guts of New York City, based on Julia Wertz's popular illustrated columns in The New Yorker and Harper's.

In Tenements, Towers & Trash, Julia Wertz takes us behind the New York that you think you know. Not the tourist's New York-the Statue of Liberty makes a brief appearance and the Empire State Building not at all-but the guts, the underbelly, of this city that never sleeps. With drawings and comics in her signature style, Wertz regales us with streetscapes Then and Now and little-known tales, such as the lost history of Kim's Video, the complicated and unresolved business of Ray's Pizza, the vintage trash and horse bones that litter the shore of Brooklyn's Bottle Beach, the ludicrous pinball prohibition, Staten Island's secret abandoned boatyard, and the hair-raising legend of the infamous abortionist of Fifth Avenue, Madame Restell. From bars, bakeries, and bookstores to food carts, street cleaners, and apartments both cramped and grand, Tenements, Towers & Trash is a wild ride in a time machine taxi from the present day city to bygone days of yore.

Author: Julia Wertz
Publisher: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers
Published: 10/03/2017
Pages: 284
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 3.88lbs
Size: 12.10h x 9.00w x 1.30d
ISBN: 9780316501217

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 06/19/2017
Kirkus Reviews 08/15/2017 pg. 159
Booklist 09/15/2017 pg. 42
Shelf Awareness 10/20/2017

About the Author
Julia Wertz is a professional cartoonist and amateur historian. She has published five graphic novels, including most recently Tenements, Towers & Trash and does monthly history comics for the New Yorker and Harper's Magazine.