The Secret City: Woodlawn Cemetery and the Buried History of New York
- ISBN-10
- 0767906470
- ISBN-13
- 9780767906470
- Series
- The Secret City
- Category
- History (General)
- Pages
- 385
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2004
- Publisher
- Broadway Books
- Author
- Fred Goodman
Description
In the spirit of Joseph Mitchell and E. L. Doctorow, a haunting and genre-defying portrait gallery of once-eminent, now half-forgotten New Yorkers buried in the city’s largest cemetery
Woodlawn Cemetery is a massive necropolis, four hundred immaculately and privately maintained acres in the north Bronx that serve as the final resting place for three hundred thousand New Yorkers. It is a place of startling serenity and architectural distinction as well as cultural and historical significance that nonetheless remains unknown to the majority of people who live in the city. Which is surprising when one learns that its (very) long-term inhabitants include Herman Melville, Duke Ellington, Robert Moses, Fiorello La Guardia, Miles Davis, and dozens of Gilded Age grandees—including Goulds and Astors—who were determined to spend eternity with opulence to match their residences while alive.
Writer Fred Goodman stumbled upon Woodlawn one day when he wandered off his bicycling path. The Secret City is the product of his frankly obsessive researches into the lives of many of the once famed, now forgotten men and women buried there. Featuring nine dramatic episodes, chronologically arranged, each story presents an exceptional individual caught up in a defining or historical moment of New York’s social, political, commercial, or artistic life. Readers meet phrenologist and publisher Orson Fowler, ASPCA founder Henry Bergh, Gilded Age railroad magnate Austin Corbin, political satirist Finley Peter Dunne, “Boy Mayor” John Purroy Mitchel, attorney Francis Garvan, sculptor Attilio Piccirilli, Harlem Renaissance poet Countee Cullen, leftist East Harlem Congressman Vito Marcantonio, and pioneering aviatrix Ruth Nichols.
Framing and tying together these novelistic tales is the first-person narrative of the author’s discovery of Woodlawn and his research. The Secret City is, then, an act of resurrection—a way of putting flesh on the anonymous dead, and humanizing and demystifying a city whose fabulous history is, too often, interred with its inhabitants.
Get the book
Other editions
Similar books
-
History of the British Standing Army.
By Clifford WaltonClerk (or) Clark, Esqre.," held the appointment ; he was son to Sir Wm. Clarke, :1 sort of Secretary-at-War, and does not appear to have been bred up to the law. In Ireland the post was held from 1635 to 1637 by W. Clerke, J.C.B., E.
-
Running as a Woman: Gender and Power in American Politics
By Karen M. Paget, Linda Witt, Glenna Matthews... and, judging by the strange new media venues, "Saturday Night Live," "Donahue," and gossip columnist Lany King's radio and television call-in shows on which 1992's Losing 245.
-
Populist Nationalism: Republican Insurgency and American Foreign Policy Making, 1918-1925
By Karen A. J. MillerHis stature within the party leadership would suffer a significant blow at the Cleveland convention . Although both Lodge and Coolidge came from Massachusetts , they represented very different elements in their state's Republican party ...
-
你一定爱读的极简世界史
By , 李菲(英)玛丽奥特, 李菲. 疆域达到了最大,罗德岛、塞浦路斯和安纳托利亚西南岸上都是他们的地盘。迈锡尼人还将克里特文字变成了一种希腊文,翻译过来的文字显示,迈锡尼人也信仰一些古典希腊的神灵,如海神波塞冬、太阳神阿波罗和主神宙斯。
-
原始富足
By 詹姆斯．舒茲曼★ 《人類大歷史》作者哈拉瑞盛讚：「深具啟發、精彩好看！」 ★ 2017年《華盛頓郵報》最佳非虛構類寫作圖書 ★ 2017年美國國家公共廣播平台（NPR）年度好書 ...
-
The American Journey: A History of the United States
By David R. Goldfield, Virginia DeJohn Anderson, William L. BarneyAnna J. Cooper , A Voice from the South , 1892 Anna Julia Cooper , A Voice from the South ( Xenia , Ohio : The Aldine Printing House , 1892 ) : 134-135 , 138–140 , 142–145 . The book may be accessed from the Internet ...
-
A Study of Pueblo Pottery as Illustrative of Zuñi Culture Growth. Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to...
By Frank Hamilton CushingThis book is part of the TREDITION CLASSICS series. The creators of this series are united by passion for literature and driven by the intention of making all public domain books available in printed format again - worldwide.
-
The Winning of the West
By Theodore Roosevelt... inhabitants are greatly Exposd . to the Saviges by whome our wives and Childring are daly Cruily murdered Notwithstanding our most Humble Petitions Canot Obtain Redress- By an other act we are Taxd . which in our 398 APPENDICES .
-
History of American Abolitionism; Its Four Great Epochs, Embracing Narratives of the Ordinance of 1787, Compromise of 1820, Annexation of...
By F. G. 1832-1896 De FontaineThis work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.
-
The African-American Odyssey: To 1877
By Darlene Clark Hine, William C. Hine, Stanley HarroldSupreme Court Justices ( continued ) Name * Years on Court Appointing President John Marshall Harlan William J. Brennan , Jr. Charles E. Whittaker Potter Stewart Byron R. White Arthur J. Goldberg Abe Fortas Thurgood Marshall WARREN E.