Writing for the Social Sciences

All the Nations Under Heaven is an unparalleled chronicle of the role of immigrants and migrants in shaping the history and culture of New York City. This updated edition of a classic text brings the story of the immigrant experience up to the present with vital new material on the city's revival with deeply rooted racial and economic inequalities.

Arlene Dávila brilliantly considers the cultural politics of urban space in this lively exploration of Puerto Rican and Latino experience in New York, the global center of culture and consumption, where Latinos are now the biggest minority group. Analyzing the simultaneous gentrification and Latinization of what is known as El Barrio or Spanish Harlem, Barrio Dreams makes a compelling case that--despite neoliberalism's race-and ethnicity-free tenets--dreams of economic empowerment are never devoid of distinct racial and ethnic considerations.

In the final years of the nineteenth century, small groups of Muslim peddlers arrived at Ellis Island every summer, bags heavy with embroidered silks from their home villages in Bengal. The American demand for "Oriental goods" took these migrants on a curious path, from New Jersey's beach boardwalks into the heart of the segregated South. Two decades later, hundreds of Indian Muslim seamen began jumping ship in New York and Baltimore, escaping the engine rooms of British steamers to find less brutal work onshore. Their stories of ingenuity and intermixture challenge assumptions about assimilation and reveal cross-racial affinities beneath the surface of early twentieth-century America.

The origin story of hip-hop--one that involves Kool Herc DJing a house party on Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx--has become received wisdom. But Joseph C. Ewoodzie Jr. argues that the full story remains to be told. In vibrant prose, he combines never-before-used archival material with searching questions about the symbolic boundaries that have divided our understanding of the music. In Break Beats in the Bronx, Ewoodzie portrays the creative process that brought about what we now know as hip-hop and shows that the art form was a result of serendipitous events, accidents, calculated successes, and failures that, almost magically, came together. In doing so, he questions the unexamined assumptions about hip-hop's beginnings, including why there are just four traditional elements--DJing, MCing, breaking, and graffiti writing--and not others, why the South Bronx and not any other borough or city is considered the cradle of the form, and which artists besides Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, and Grandmaster Flash founded the genre. Ewoodzie answers these and many other questions about hip-hop's beginnings. Unearthing new evidence, he shows what occurred during the crucial but surprisingly underexamined years between 1975 and 1979 and argues that it was during this period that the internal logic and conventions of the scene were formed.

The home of the Yankees, the Bronx Zoo; and the Grand Concourse, the Bronx was once a haven for upwardly mobile second-generation immigrants eager to leave crowded Manhattan tenements. It was hailed as a wonder borough of homes, parks, and universities. But during the 1960s and 1970s, neighborhoods that had held generations of Bronx families disappeared under waves of arson, crime, and housing abandonment, with solid blocks of brick apartment buildings turning into rubble-filled empty acres. This is the inspirational history of the New York City borough that has made a complete revolution - from the home of the American dream to the last place on earth and back again (the Bronx was named an All-America City in 1997 by the National Civic League). status as a densely populated home for New York's growing and increasingly more heterogeneous Hispanic and African American population, this book shows how the borough developed within New York City's orbit and interacted with the city as it grew from the tip of Manhattan to a five-borough metropolis. Along the way, Evelyn Gonzalez reveals how the decline and rapid racial change that affected the Bronx during the urban crisis of the 1960s and 1970s were connected to the economic transactious, political decisions, and human choices that created the borough in the first place.

City of Forests, City of Farms is a valuable tool that allows us to understand and disentangle the political decisions, popular narratives, and physical practices that shape city greening in New York City and elsewhere.

2020 Brendan Gill Prize finalist For forty years, as New York's Lower East Side went from disinvested to gentrified, residents lived with a wound at the heart of the neighborhood, a wasteland of vacant lots known as the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area (SPURA). Most of the buildings on the fourteen-square-block area were condemned in 1967, displacing thousands of low-income people of color with the promise that they would soon return to new housing--housing that never came.  Over decades, efforts to keep out affordable housing sparked deep-rooted enmity and stalled development, making SPURA a dramatic study of failed urban renewal, as well as a microcosm epitomizing the greatest challenges faced by American cities since World War II.  Artist and urban scholar Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani was invited to enter this tense community to support a new approach to planning, which she accepted using collaboration, community organizing, public history, and public art. This is a book for artists, planners, scholars, teachers, cultural institutions, and all those who seek to collaborate in new ways with communities. 

A story of resistance, power and politics as revealed through New York City's complex history of police brutality The 2014 killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri was the catalyst for a national conversation about race, policing, and injustice. The subsequent killings of other black (often unarmed) citizens led to a surge of media coverage which in turn led to protests and clashes between the police and local residents that were reminiscent of the unrest of the 1960s. Fight the Power examines the explosive history of police brutality in New York City and the black community's long struggle to resist it. Taylor brings this story to life by exploring the institutions and the people that waged campaigns to end the mistreatment of people of color at the hands of the police, including the black church, the black press, black communists and civil rights activists. Ranging from the 1940s to the mayoralty of Bill de Blasio, Taylor describes the significant strides made in curbing police power in New York City, describing the grassroots street campaigns as well as the accomplishments achieved in the political arena and in the city's courtrooms. Taylor challenges the belief that police reform is born out of improved relations between communities and the authorities arguing that the only real solution is radically reducing the police domination of New York's black citizens.

The Netherlands was a world economic power in the seventeenth century. It sought to expand its influence by establishing a colony in the New World. New Amsterdam, situated between Plymouth and Jamestown, was successfully settled in 1624. Readers learn about the rapid rise and fall of this colony, which would be taken over by the British and renamed New York.

From the beginnings of Harlemania to the beginnings of the Great Depression, this authoritative resource presents the people, places and times that defined an era and documents the launch of cultural development among African Americans in 1920s Harlem. This single volume contains almanac and biographies sections with primary source documents in sidebars throughout. The book features 7 subject chapters and 15 biographical profiles. The chapters in Harlem Renaissance feature informative sidebars that describe Harlem slang, fashion and popular dances, as well as interesting figures such as Josephine Baker, Florence Mills and Bill Bojangles| Robinson. Harlem Renaissance presents the writings of notable authors of the time and how African American literature changed from works in dialect to penetrating analyses of black culture, inspiring novels of protest and racial pride. Look for informative chapters that feature: Biographies The beginnings of the Harlem Renaissance Historical background and overview Fiction, poetry and journalism Performing arts The visual arts Harlem nightlife The end of the Harlem Renaissance And much more While Gale strives to replicate print content, some content may not be available due to rights restrictions.Call your Sales Rep for details.|PIM|31-MAY-18|01

Since its emergence in the mid-nineteenth century as the nation's "metropolis," New York has faced the most challenging housing problems of any American city, but it has also led the nation in innovation and reform. The horrors of the tenement were perfected in New York at the same time that the very rich were building palaces along Fifth Avenue; public housing for the poor originated in New York, as did government subsidies for middle-class housing. A standard in the field since its publication in 1992, A History of Housing in New York City traces New York's housing development from 1850 to the present in text and profuse illustrations. Richard Plunz explores the housing of all classes, with comparative discussion of the development of types ranging from the single-family house to the high-rise apartment tower. His analysis is placed within the context of the broader political and cultural development of New York City.

Can American cities respond effectively to pressing social problems? Or, as many scholars have claimed, are urban politics so mired in stasis, gridlock and bureaucratic paralysis that dramatic policy change is impossible? Homelessness in New York City tells the remarkable story of how America's largest city has struggled for more than thirty years to meet the crisis of modern homelessness through the landmark development, since the initiation of the Callahan v Carey litigation in 1979, of a municipal shelter system based on a court-enforced right to shelter. New York City now shelters more than 50,000 otherwise homeless people at an annual cost of more than $1 billion in the largest and most complex shelter system in the world. provision for the poor create perverse incentives? Can courts manage recalcitrant bureaucracies? Is poverty rooted in economic structures or personal behavior? The tale of how five mayors--Koch, Dinkins, Giuliani, Bloomberg and de Blasio--have wrestled with these problems is one of caution and hope: the task is difficult and success is never unqualified, but positive change is possible. Homelessness in New York City tells the remarkable story of what happened--for good and sometimes less good--when New York established the right to shelter.

This collection of original essays draws on a variety of theoretical perspectives, methodologies, and empirical data to explore the effects of West Indian migration and to develop analytic frameworks to examine it.

The complete story of Jewish Harlem and its significance in American Jewish history New York Times columnist David W. Dunlap wrote a decade ago that "on the map of the Jewish Diaspora, Harlem Is Atlantis. . . . A vibrant hub of industry, artistry and wealth is all but forgotten. It is as if Jewish Harlem sank 70 years ago beneath waves of memory beyond recall." During World War I, Harlem was the home of the second largest Jewish community in America. But in the 1920s Jewish residents began to scatter to other parts of Manhattan, to the outer boroughs, and to other cities. Now nearly a century later, Jews are returning uptown to a gentrified Harlem. The Jews of Harlem follows Jews into, out of, and back into this renowned metropolitan neighborhood over the course of a century and a half.

Upegui-Hernindez explores how Colombian and Dominican children of immigrants living in New York City negotiate multiple identities, family relationships, and life opportunities within transnational contexts and social fields. Colombian and Dominican children of immigrants had parallel psychological experiences of living among multiple cultures, maintaining transnational ties with family in their parentsOCO home countries, and shared similar identity negotiation strategies that challenge reified notions of ethnic/racial/national identity and identity labels. Transnational ties and involvement among respondents were anchored in family relationships. However, their experiences with social structures were marked by differences in skin color, class, and particular immigration histories."

This absorbing anthology features in-depth portraits of diverse ethnic populations, revealing the surprising new realities of immigrant life in twenty-first-century New York City. Contributors show how nearly fifty years of massive inflows have transformed New York City's economic and cultural life and how the city has changed the lives of immigrant newcomers. Nancy Foner's introduction describes New York's role as a special gateway to America. Subsequent essays focus on the Chinese, Dominicans, Jamaicans, Koreans, Liberians, Mexicans, and Jews from the former Soviet Union now present in the city and fueling its population growth. They discuss both the large numbers of undocumented Mexicans living in legal limbo and the new, flourishing community organizations offering them opportunities for advancement. They recount the experiences of Liberians fleeing a war torn country and their creation of a vibrant neighborhood on Staten Island's North Shore. Through engaging, empathetic portraits, contributors consider changing Korean-owned businesses and Chinese Americans' increased representation in New York City politics, among other achievements and social and cultural challenges. A concluding chapter follows the prospects of the U.S.-born children of immigrants as they make their way in New York City.

Leading scholars consider crucial aspects of Harlem's social, political, and intellectual history, its artistic, cultural, and economic life, and its representation across an array of media and genres. Race Capital? models new Harlem scholarship that interrogates exceptionalism while taking seriously the importance of place and locality.

Displaying gleaming new shopping centers and refurbished row houses, Harlem today bears little resemblance to the neighborhood of the midcentury urban crisis. Brian Goldstein traces Harlem's widely noted "Second Renaissance" to a surprising source: the radical 1960s social movements that resisted city officials and fought to give Harlemites control of their own destiny. In the post-World War II era, large-scale government-backed redevelopment drove the economic and physical transformation of urban neighborhoods. But in the 1960s, young Harlem activists inspired by the civil rights movement recognized urban renewal as one more example of a power structure that gave black Americans little voice in the decisions that most affected them. They demanded the right to plan their own redevelopment and founded new community-based organizations to achieve that goal. In the following decades, those organizations became the crucibles in which Harlemites debated what their streets should look like and who should inhabit them.e longtime residents and threatened others.

Writer Ted Fox and artist James Otis Smith bring to life Harlem's legendary theater in this graphic novel adaptation of Fox's definitive, critically acclaimed history of the Apollo.   Since its inception as an African-American theater in 1934, the Apollo, and the thousands of entertainers who performed there, have led the way in the presentation of swing, bebop, rhythm and blues, jazz, gospel, soul, funk and hip-hop--along with the latest in dance and comedy. The Apollo has nurtured and featured thousands of artists, many of whom have become legends. The beauty they have given the world--their art--transcends the hatred, ignorance, and intolerance that often made their lives difficult. Today, the Apollo enjoys an almost mythical status. With its breathtaking art, this graphic novel adaptation of Showtime at the Apollo brings to life the theater's legendary significance in music history, African American history, and to the culture of New York City.  

Innovation is often presented as being in the exclusive domain of the private sector. Yet despite widespread perceptions of public-sector inefficiency, government agencies have much to teach us about how technological and social advances occur. Improving governance at the municipal level is critical to the future of the twenty-first-century city, from environmental sustainability to education, economic development, public health, and beyond. In this age of acceleration and massive migration of people into cities around the world, this book explains how innovation from within city agencies and administrations makes urban systems smarter and shapes life in New York City. Using a series of case studies, Smarter New York City describes the drivers and constraints behind urban innovation, including leadership and organization; networks and interagency collaboration; institutional context; technology and real-time data collection; responsiveness and decision making; and results and impact. Cases include residential organic-waste collection, an NYPD program that identifies the sound of gunshots in real time, and the Vision Zero attempt to end traffic casualties, among others. Challenging the usefulness of a tech-centric view of urban innovation, Smarter New York City brings together a multidisciplinary and integrated perspective to imagine new possibilities from within city agencies, with practical lessons for city officials, urban planners, policy makers, civil society, and potential private-sector partners.

Why the cabdriver is the real victim of the false promises of Uber and the gig economy. 2007 Noteworthy Book in Industrial Relations and Labor Economics, Princeton University Industrial Relations Section Hailed in its first edition as a classic study of New York City's history and people, Graham Russell Gao Hodges's Taxi! is a remarkable evocation of the forgotten history of the taxi driver. This deftly woven narrative captures the spirit of New York City cabdrivers and their hardscrabble struggle to capture a piece of the American dream. From labor unrest and racial strife to ruthless competition and political machinations, Hodges recounts this history through contemporary news accounts, Hollywood films, and the words of the cabbies themselves. A new preface recalls the author's five years of hacking in New York City in the early 1970s, and a new concluding chapter explores the rise of app-based ridesharing services with the arrival of companies like Uber and Lyft.