Supreme City

November 15, 2014

From the end of the World War I until the Great Depression, America saw an extraordinary flowering of culture, commerce, and invention focused particularly in Manhattan. Here, under the corrupt but vigorous rule of Mayor Jimmy Walker, New York hosted entertainment magnates such as Florenz Ziegfeld and Texas Guinan, media pioneers David Sarnoff and William Paley, sports heroes Babe Ruth and Jack Dempsey, Prohibition-era gangsters Arnold Rothstein and Frank Costello, and a boom in rail transportation and skyscraper construction. In a captivating series of biographical sketches, Miller documents the way in which Jazz Age Manhattan attracted a unique group of talented and ambitious individuals and became the social and economic epicenter of America in the space of about ten years. Despite the daunting length of the audiobook, narrator Jim Frangione does a fine job of maintaining its energetic pace. VERDICT Endlessly fascinating, this work will appeal especially to fans of 20th-century American history.--Forrest Link, Coll. of New Jersey Lib., Ewing

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Starred review from February 10, 2014
Lafayette College history professor Miller (Masters of the Air) captures the heady excitement and enduring creativity of 1920s Manhattan. Focusing on development of Midtown Manhattan, Miller vividly reimagines the city to describe the lives of his characters—those responsible for the skyscrapers, hotels, department stores, co-ops, night clubs, theaters, and businesses that flocked to Midtown after the completion of Grand Central Station in 1913. His cast includes the famous (Charles Lindbergh, Duke Ellington); the infamous (mobster Owney Madden); the ingenious (George Washington bridge engineer Othmar Ammann); and the entrepreneurial (cosmetics empress Helen Rubenstein, NBC founder David Sarnoff). Others—longshoremen, garment workers, ironworkers—labored behind the scenes. Miller covers topics as diverse as the crime syndicates and bootleggers of the Prohibition era; changes in the housing market; the evolution of the publishing industry; the construction of chic, art deco office buildings, such as the Chrysler, that transformed Midtown into a mercantile center with distinctive boundaries; and far more. Conveying the panoramic sweep of the era with wit, illuminating details, humor, and style, Miller illustrates how Midtown Manhattan became the nation’s communications, entertainment, and commercial epicenter. 50 b&w images in a 24-page insert. Agent: Gina Maccoby, Gina Maccoby Literary Agency.