1. All That Is Solid Melts Into Air 
   The Experience of Modernity
   Resource Type: Book
   First Published: 1982   Published: 1988
   Berman examines the clash of classes, histories, and clutures in the modern world, and ponders our prospects for coming to terms with the relationship between a liberating social and philosophical idealism and a complex, bureaucratic materialism.
   
2. Banned Books
   Informal Notes on Some Books Banned for Various Reasons
   Resource Type: Book
   First Published: 1970
   
3. Banning Cars from Manhattan
   Resource Type: Article
   First Published: 1961
   By banning private cars and reducing traffic, we can, in most areas, close off nearly nine out of ten cross-town streets and every second north-south avenue. These closed roads plus the space now used for off-street parking will give us a handsome fund of land for neighborhood relocation. At present over 35 percent of the area of Manhattan is occupied by roads.
4. The Battle for Brooklyn
   The Abuse of Eminent Domain
   Resource Type: Article
   First Published: 2011
   An article about the documentary Battle for Brooklyn, which chronicles the fight waged by residents and business owners of Brooklyn’s Prospect Heights neighborhood facing demolition of their property to make way for the Atlantic Yards project, a massive plan to build 16 skyscrapers and a basketball arena for the New Jersey Nets.
5. The City and Radical Social Change 
   Resource Type: Book
   First Published: 1982
   A collection of essays dealing with the dynamics of the new forces for social change in our urban milieu, discussing how new ideas are contributing to an urban insurgency which could lead to a new city and a new concept of citizenship.
6. Communitas 
   Means of Livelihood and Ways of Life
   Resource Type: Book
   First Published: 1947   Published: 1960
   Visions of urban life.
7. Declaration of the Occupation of New York City
   Resource Type: Article
   First Published: 2011
   Document accepted by the NYC General Assembly on September 29, 2011.
8. The Economy of Cities
   Resource Type: Book
   First Published: 1970
   Ideas about what makes cities rich or poor, how cities grow, and how city growth affects national economies.
9. False Promises 
   The Shaping of American Working Class Consciousness
   Resource Type: Book
   First Published: 1973
   
10. Home!
    A Bioregional Reader
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1990
    A guide to the vision and strategy of bioregionalism.
11. Immigrant Women in the Land of Dollars
    Life and Culture on the Lower East Side, 1890- 1925
    Resource Type: Book
    Tells the story of the Jewish and Italian women who came to inhabit New York's Lower East Side during this period of massive migration.
12. ‘It Was a Remarkably Successful Grassroots Campaign to Target Amazon’s Credibility’
    CounterSpin interview with Neil deMause on Amazon's retreat from New York
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2019
    Transcript of interview with Neil deMause about NY's bid for Amazon HQ. Included downloadable MP3 of interview.
13. Liberal Dreams and Nature's Limits
    Great Cities of North America Since 1600
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1996
    An exploration of city life through time, focusing on the life [economically, socially, politically, etc.] of five large North American cities at various times in the past - Philadelphia during the time of Benjamin Franklin (1760), New York in the mid nineteenth-century (1860), Chicago at the beginning of the Progressivist Civic Movements (1910), Los Angeles during the immediate Post-war boom (1950) and Toronto at the beginning of its own ascendancy in the 1970's. (1975).
14. New York Transit Between Old and New Directions
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1998
    IN ATC 74 ("Transit Workers Try a New Direction"), Marian Swerdlow described the fight taking place in Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union (TWU) between the entrenched Willie James bureaucracy and the reformers in New Directions. Local 100 represents New York City's bus and subway workers. Written earlier this year, Swerdlow's article concluded as the stage was being set for the rerun election ordered when the International TWU was forced to admit that the narrow victory by the...
15. Police Terror in the Big Apple
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2014
    Scott exposes the realities of police brutality and the character of organized opposition in New York City.
16. The Radical Camera
    New York's Photo League, 1936-1951
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 2011
    Artists in 'the Photo League', active from 1936 to 1951, were known for capturing sharply revealing, compelling moments from everyday life.
17. Renewing New York
    Against The Current vol. 151
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2011
    An interview with Howie Hawkins. Howie Hawkins, a Green Party and socialist activist, ran for Governor of New York State. Dianne Feeley interviewed him for ATC.
18. '68: The Year of the Barricades 
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1988
    Caute's book looks at the explosive year 1968 (while situating it in the context of what had led up to it). One of the great strengths of this excellent book is that it looks at what was happening around the world.
19. Stop Signs
    Cars and Capitalism on the Road to Economic, Social and Ecological Decay
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 2011
    A global ecological critique of the American automobile addiction.
20. Swimming in Shit
    Against the Current
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2014
    Why is it the case that in a city that is almost entirely built on islands – a city literally surrounded by water – are there so few places to swim and cool off?
21. An Unauthorized Biography of the World 
    Oral History on the Front Lines
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 2004
    This book uses oral history to discuss oral history. It is in memoir style, and delves into how oral history is done in such places as First Nations (Canada), Turkey, Chicago, Newfoundland, Peru, New York City, Cleveland, Israel, and other places. Riordon's concept is about telling stories, celebrating diversity, and making connections between people.
22. Utopian Essays and Practical Proposals 
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1951   Published: 1962
    Whatever the subject, Goodman asks: What blocks and limits human freedom, joy, and creativity? What tends to release, free, liberate? In criticizing society and life his purpose is to improve. Goodman is animated by a vision of a good society, a coherent community, a style, and quality, of life that is fully human, and humanizes.
23. What Happened - and Didn't: Behind New York's Transit Strike
    Against The Current vol. 124
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2006
    Early on December 20, 2005, Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100, representing some 33,000 of New York City's subway and bus workers, called a strike. When dawn broke, there was no public transportation in NYC and millions of people walked, hitched rides, rode their bikes, or stayed home.
24. The World Without Us 
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 2007
    A thought experiment to see what would happen to the planet if human beings simply disappeared.
    
25. The Young Lords' Legacy of Puerto Rican Activism
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2009
    A short history of the Young Lords, a group that used confrontational tactics to bring services and attention to the residents of East Harlem, or El Barrio, and beyond.

Experts on New York in the Sources Directory

1. Metropolitan Museum of Art