Book Review | Damnation Island: Poor, Sick, Mad, and Criminal in 19th-Century New York

Rating | ⭐⭐⭐⭐

This book was absolutely horrifying and engrossing at the same time. I could not put it down.

In 1928 NYC purchased an island in the East River and called it Blackwell's Island. For the next hundred years the complex of buildings were supposedly a safe-ish place for the insane, poor, sick, and criminal. The author shows us what daily life was like for those living on the island, as well as those who worked there. We hear from the people trapped there, city officials who sent them away, reformers who knew it was not the solution, and journalists trying to shed light on the abusive and inhumane practices. We also are taken on a deep dive of the politics surrounding the on-going use of the island, how 'charity' was put into practice, and all of the horrific 'therapies' patients were subjected to.

Different facilities were built to care for each of the groups mentioned above. Great in theory, but not entirely accurate in practice. Due to funding (or lack of), staffing (or lack of), food (or lack of), and/or medication/supplies (or lack of), these populations often mixed together and the results are as awful as you would expect. With massive overcrowding, sometimes inmates were assigned to a different facility than was appropriate. And as a cost-saving measure, convicts were assigned jobs as attendants in one of the other buildings. It went as well as you would expect.

That was not the vision the city had for this project when it first began. Originally the plans were, naturally, to find humane ways to care for these populations with the highest needs. The initial plan was for a facility to house up to 200 people. There was no intention of mixing any of the populations, especially not those in the penitentiary with the mentally ill, One can see right away why that would be a receipe for disaster, a situation ripe for further abuse of those least able to defend themselves. When the building was nearly at capacity in the first few weeks, the city realized they had a much bigger problem on their hands. The asylum had to be enlarged repeatedly, and still there was never enough room for everyone. And for the doctors and nurses truly trying to do good and help those in their care, it must have been overwhelming to know that there was never enough of anything to truly help - not enough money, not enough staff, not enough supplies and food and medications. Of course, you also had those who did not care about treating patients humanely, which made an already-unbearable situation infinitely worse.

We might think we are doing so much better today, but let's be realistic. The mentally ill and the criminal are still housed together, only now it's in jails and prisons, where those with metal illness get zero treatment and they are subject to abuse again at the hands of fellow inmates. While treatments in psychiatric facilities are better now, prisons are not. Prisons are the new asylums for those who do not have access to treatments and medications and money/insurance to pay for these things that the psych facilities can provide.

The author did a fantastic job showcasing each facility on the island and how they operated. As we all know, people (mainly women) could be committed for pretty much anything, and that's exactly how Blackwell Island found itself at capacity so soon after opening. For a century, people sent to the island were subjected to absolutely disgusting living conditions. Food was often spoiled and rotting, and there was much physical abuse. It will also surprise no one that racism was also at work, and while conditions were terrible for everyone, it was usually even worse for Black patients and inmates. Plus we all know how well-liked the Irish were at this time, so their treatment was also as awful as you would expect.

This is a very well-researched and interesting read. The author had access to surviving documents and really brought to life individuals who lived and died on the island. It is a difficult read, but an important one. The complete disregard for human life over the decades of operations is heartbreaking and something that stayed with me long after I finished this one. There were certainly bright spots in the story, reformers who saw what was happening and tried to stop it, but were met with resistance at nearly every turn.

The author ends with a look at Rikers Island now, and asks if we are really doing much better today. You can probably draw your own conclusion.

Highly recommended.

Book Review | Life at the Dakota: New York's Most Unusual Address

Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I am beyond obsessed with NYC so this book was perfect for me. One downside is that it was written in 1979 and I would love to see an updated version that details the history of the building up to now. My first exposure to this magnificent building came when I was in elementary school and devoured Baby-Sitters Club books like there was no tomorrow. Stacey moved from NYC to Stoneybrook, and her best friend Laine lived at the Dakota. I remember thinking how amazing and intriguing it sounded, this fancy building in the coolest city in the world.

Edward Clark, of Singer sewing machine fame which he partnered with Isaac Singer on to build their empire, commissioned to have the Dakota built in the 1880s. It was not named as such by him initially. He had intended to call it the Clark Apartments, but at first given its location, society referred to it as Clark's Folly. A friend even went so far as to say the building was so far north and west on Manhattan's Upper West Side (and so far from the city's active center), Clark might as well have been building it in Dakota. "And so, in gesture of airy defiance to the critics and skeptics and naysayers, he announced that its name would be the Dakota" (9%).

The Dakota became one of the first true luxury apartment and despite its location and those critics, it was an immediate success from the moment it was ready for tenants.

Here the author details the first one hundred years of the building's life. We get the history of the place and its people - from Boris Karloff to John Lennon. We learn the ins and outs of the building - the secret passages, labyrinth-like interior, and of course GHOSTS.

The author brings the building itself to life, which was helpful given the lack of photos. The author goes into great detail regarding the tenants - famous or not. There's actually way more than we would ever need to know about them, which does make for some uncomfortable reading sometimes. He definitely used language/had a not-okay attitude we would never used today about certain groups of minorities - LGBTQIA+, African-American, and Jewish people. It doesn't make any of it okay, but at least keep in mind this was written in 1979. We've come a long way since then (mostly). I also hope the building is not as discriminatory today as it was then, despite Roberta Flack being the first African-American resident in the 70s.

I love books about buildings with history such as the Dakota, and that's what made this one such a draw for me, despite the negative aspects of the book. And not only did it give a beautiful history of such a unique place, but we also get some history of the immediate surrounding area, which includes Central Park. Any history of NYC is like manna from Heaven to me, so I loved this aspect, too. The earliest days of the building remained the most interesting to me - partiall due to my love for all things Gilded Age NYC. I find the development of the city fascinating as it inched along, slowly becoming what we know it as today.

There were so many anecdotes that I found endearing or interesting. I've included those here along with the point they were discussed in the Kindle version of the text.

(26%) William Henry Pratt, more widely known as Boris Karloff, lived in the building for years and would tell the tale of how every Halloween he would set out a bowl of candy for the children living there. Yet he never had an Halloween visitors, because the children were too scared to even ring the doorbell.

(28%) The Clarks certainly knew how to take care of their tenants. When one gentleman was away for the summer, a water pipe burst, destroying an irreplaceable panel of wallpaper. Instead, the building's painting crew replicated the wallpaper pattern down to the last detail and the tenant could not tell the difference upon his return.

(29%) At one point the building had it's own destructive phantom, referred to as the Mad Slasher - unknown whether it was ghostly or otherwise. For whatever reason, this person was determined to damage the passanger elevators soon after they were installed. Deep gouges were repeatedly carved into the paneled walls constantly. They were determined to be too high for a child to reach and so deep that someone incredibly strong would have had to have made them. It made the living situation incredibly uncomfortable, as neighbors became suspicious of one another. Piles of shredded paper were also found in various corridors, which were thought to be attempts to light fires. One of the biggest events occurred when a can of paint was thrown from the roof of the building into the courtyard below, just barely missing a tenant. Despite attempts to catch whoever was up to know good, no one was ever apprehended. There were no clues even as to who the culprit might have been.

Lastly, this one hits the hardest and makes me so sad for all the history lost. The Dakota has rooftop storage rooms (at least at the time of the writing). Unfortunately, they're all empty now. Decades ago Edward Downes, a resident, discovered a handyman carrying stacks of old file folders. Turns out he was clearing out the room of one hundred year's worth of documents pertaining to the building. Downes was able to save a few documents, but most of it was gone, just like that. All kinds of records - from past tenants, complaints, births and deaths, and so on, were all gone just like that. Jo Mielziner, another resident, had kept years' and years' worth of records of the Dakota in various files and scrapbooks. Unfortunately when Mielziner had passed away a few years earlier in 1976, the files were never found. More history, just gone.

Despite the negative aspects of the book, I truly loved the history of the building and would love to know so much more.

Recommended.

NetGalley ARC | Maiden Voyages: Magnificent Ocean Liners and the Women Who Traveled and Worked Aboard Them

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating ⭐⭐⭐

I probably would have given this four stars, or at least three and a half, if I would not have had to read about the journey of the mother of the worst president in the history of the United States.

Aside from that drivel, this was a book packed with tons of interesting anecdotes and gossip and I feel the author did a fantastic job portraying life at sea for these women and how their work evolved over time.

I enjoy this period of travel. I love that the author focuses specifically on women and how they made a living on the massive liners that once ran regularly between the US and Europe.

I appreciate that she focused on a a wide variety of women, from all walks of life. We read of celebrities, artists, and the wealthy travelling for pleasure, migrants and refugees seeking safety and a new life, as well as the women who worked for the great shipping companies, sending their wages back home to help care for parents and siblings.

I found women on the crew to be of the most interest to me. I admire these women who worked these long, hard hours at sea to provide for their families. Violet Jessop is mentioned here and I absolutely recommend her autobiography, which I wrote about HERE. Not only did Violet survive the sinking of Titanic, but not long after she survived the sinking of the Britannic (Titanic's sister ship) as well. Her book is a wonderful look into her life, in which the famous and not-so-famous shipwrecks play but a small part. She had even been aboard the Olympic in 1911 when it collided with the HMS Hawke.

There were times when the narrative was very slow and felt like a slog. This could be a personal thing, as we learn plenty about those who travelled by liner because they had the money to do so, sailing back and forth between the Old World and the New. Still, it did take me a bit to finish this one and some passages and stories were not nearly as interesting as others.

There were times when the book became a bit repetitive as well, especially when stories were similar. Not always, but enough to be noticeable.

I never really thought about until this book, just how critical this work was for women who sought independence and a way to support themselves. To say that it changed countless lives would not be an overstatement. Slowly but surely, as women began travelling more, the need for stewardesses arose to help tend to them aboard the ships. That role of stewardess even evolved over time as some women were able to become conductresses and coordinate activities for the passengers. And then as two world wars came, women were able to stay aboard as nurses and continue to make a life for themselves.

Overall I appreciate the author's work and the research that went into the book. She's given a voice to many women who otherwise might remain unknown to us today.

NetGalley ARC | The Deviant's War: The Homosexual vs. the United States of America

 

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This one took me much longer to read than I care to admit, but I am not sure why. it is exactly the kind of history I would want to read, history that is nearly lost to us, because it occurred a generation before Stonewall. It very well could simply have been the time frame in which I was reading it - a lot happened last year, to say the least.

Prior to reading this, I had no idea who Frank Kameny was. I am so glad I stuck with it, because it is one of the best books I read last year, despite it taking me a while to get through.

Highly gifted and evident from a young age when he taught himself to read at four, Kameny's path should have been easy. By age six he knew he wanted to be an astronaut. Yet life would get incredibly painful and complicated for him in 1957, just twelve short years after fighting for our country in WWII. It was in that year Kameny was called to Washington where he was to meet with officials who had reason to believe he was a homosexual - the kiss of death for one's career when security clearance is required.

After a series of insanely humiliating interviews, Kameny was relieved of his duties in Hawaii. He was not the first to be fired for being gay, nor was he the last. What makes Kameny stand out though, is that he fought back - taking on the US government.

Kameny became an early leader in the fight for gay liberation, when those words did not yet even go together. Kameny refused to be silent and simply accept his dismissal. He began putting together the arguments that formed the basis of the broader movement that we know today.

Kameny is not without flaws and I find it refreshing that those were laid out in detail, just as the rest of his story was. A particular point of interest I want to touch on is the idea Kameny had in his head of respectability. He insisted on a very strict dress code at the protests he organized; he wanted to ensure that gay and lesbian protestors looked "employable". Even from the outside looking in, Kameny felt it was important to look the part instead of as an 'Other' that would potentially hurt the cause and there were extremely rigid guidelines he expected fellow picketers to follow. I find this to be an important mention because I feel like today people who are removed from the LGBTQIA+ community do not recognize the fact that there is conservatism there, just as we see in so many other aspects of society. Kameny wanted fellow protestors to remain what the time Period considered respectable. I think this is a thought that takes some getting used-to, considering how perspectives have changed so drastically over the decades in some ways, and in others not at all.

Kameny would spend much of the rest of his life dedicated to fighting for the rights of homosexuals specifically, though this broadened as the years went on. He founded the DC branch of the Mattachine Society - good Lord, the in-fighting sometimes! It grew incredibly frustrating to read, but Kameny never lost sight of the goal even through all of it. Gay and lesbian people deserved the same right as everyone else and he would not rest until he had done all he could to make it so.

There is so much information here, the author has meticulously researched his main subject and then placed him in the proper context of his time. The sheer amount of material he worked with is jaw-dropping, something like over 40,000+ documents which he weeded through in order to tell this story. It is an important one and needed to be told.

Highly recommended.

Publisher Gift (via NetGalley) | Prisoners of War: What Monuments to World War II Tell Us about Our History and Ourselves

 

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. (In this case, the publisher contacted me by email, and directed me to NetGalley if I was interested.)

Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The importance of this book cannot be overstated. it is a timely look at our relationship with statues dedicated to history. One only has to look at the arguments made against removing confederate statues from public spaces to see the relevance. (Side note: pull all that bullshit down and stick it in a museum, with context, where it belongs. There are no heroes of the confederacy and not a single one of those men should be honored for their actions. They fought to keep slaves and no amount of supposed 'good' they ever did can make up for that fact. Fuck THAT bullshit narrative.)

Anyway.

Addressing this issue of accepting statues at face-value of being accurate representations of a moment in time in our history of war is done quite well within these pages. The author not only looks at how these monuments are written about, talked about, and viewed in the US, but looks at various monuments to the very same war and how they are viewed in countries around the world. In total he discusses 25 different monuments, from the US, to Italy, to Jerusalem, China, and many in between.

The photographs are stunning and for once I was glad to have received the file for my laptop only instead of my Kindle. Even though I hate sitting at my laptop to read, the photos alone were nearly enough to make it worth it. This truly is a book to have a physical copy of to peruse at your leisure. I don't feel it is a book meant to be read quickly or in just a couple of sittings. It will definitely give anyone pause who has visited these sites, and perhaps grapple with how one originally interpreted the monument, compared to its original and intended purpose.

One of the biggest take-aways from this book is the vast difference in how World War II is memorialized. Here in the US, our statues are to honor the heroes and our triumph over true and despicable evil. Yet around the world, monuments are most often dedicated to the victims - such as Italy's Shrine to the Fallen or The A Bomb Dome in Hiroshima. I think this again confirms the fact that the US often equates winning and patriotism - though it must also be remembered that aside from Pearl Harbor, World War II was not fought here. The monuments to the victims and the fallen are most often literally on the site of the atrocities they represent.

Lowe provides much context for the various events being commemorated by each statue. The research is thorough and he writes in an engaging way. He certainly gives the reader a lot to think about - both regarding those he is writing about, and the specific issue in the US regarding confederate monuments still standing.

When we come upon these monuments, either because we've specifically taken a trip to see them or we stumble upon them by accident, we must not stop asking ourselves to look beyond the scenery as it being another pretty picture for photo ops. We have to consider the original intended purpose of the statue, what aspect of history is being told, and whether or not it is actually accurate in its depiction.

Highly recommended.

NetGalley ARC | The Plaza: The Secret Life of America's Most Famous Hotel

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I would give (almost) anything to have seen The Plaza in its heyday. I can't even imagine, all the glitz and glamour that went along with it. Just think - Eloise, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Vanderbilts, and the like. I am a sucked for Gilded and Jazz Age splendor, and this book provided plenty of both, before reality came crashing in on Black Tuesday, 1929.

How amazing that this beautiful building could survive the Great Depression, yet all it took was a couple years of super shitty management in late 80s/early 90s to drive it right into the ground and forcing the owner to sell due to bankruptcy. I'd give you three guesses as to who that shitty owner was, but you'll only need one. He's the only owner in the hotel's grand history to completely fail at being its owner. (Full disclosure, I very quickly skimmed the two chapters detailing his ownership because, fuck that guy.) 

It does make me pretty bummed to read about it in its current state but I also understand that history rarely matters to those bent on making tons of money. At least the building is now on the National Historic Registry so that no further damage can be done to this beautiful relic.

The author, journalist Julie Satow, spent over a decade conducting the research that went into this fantastic history of one of the city's most iconic buildings. Satow talked to guests/residents, and staff members - many of whom have been associated with the hotel for several decades. She traces its beginnings, from the Gilded Age to its current incarnation - no longer only a hotel, but also in-part high-priced condos, high-end boutiques and eateries, and more.

The original Plaza opened in 1890, and in less than twenty years was demolished in order to make room for an even larger, grander hotel. It still sits on that site today, perched on 5th Avenue as a silent sentry, looking out over Central Park. The doors reopened in 1907 and its owner, Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, moved right in, becoming the luxury hotel's first guest.

This book is a study in business as much as it is a cultural and social history of New York City. It is true that we get behind-the-scenes details on Capote's Black and White Ball, and we see the sheer chaos prompted by the first US visit by The Beatles. We see how the hotel promoted the life of luxury that the millionaires of the city were accustomed to and expected, but the author also discusses how the hotel has survived changing ownership, and how that ownership has adapted to allow that survival. As the customer base remained the same, needs changed over the decades and The Plaza was able to adapt to serve those needs.

Had it not been for some very wealthy widows during the 1930s, The Plaza might have closed its doors long ago. Even so, when owner Harry S. Black lost his fortune in the stock market crash, his suicide made the hotel available for purchase and it was taken over by Conrad Hilton. This was only the beginning of the rapid changes in ownership that would persist to the present day. Conrad unloaded the hotel into the hands of the Westin Hotels chain, then trump got his grubby little hands on it, and now it is owned by the Qatar Investment Authority.

I loved seeing the evolution of the hotel, and New York City. This will definitely be one of the stops we make when Eleanor and I travel there when she is older. Though the hotel has gone through many changes, parts of it still exist that were original to the hotel in 1907, such as the Palm Court. I would love to just wander into the hotel, set myself down in the lobby, and people-watch for hours.

This is another must-read for those who love NYC as much as I do. It is well-researched and engaging from start to finish. Highly recommended.

NetGalley ARC | Growing Up Bank Street: A Greenwich Village Memoir

 

I received a free digital ARC from NYU Press via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This was a no-brainer for me when I spied it on NetGalley not too long ago. Even though I have never been to New York City, I feel like it is my home. I devour books about the city, its individual boroughs, the whole history from New Amsterdam to now, because I want to know every last detail and try to imagine what life would be like to be a child of NYC. Now, don't get me wrong, I had an amazing childhood and am incredibly lucky and blessed and loved. But if that amazing childhood could have been transplanted to the Village, that would have been most excellent.

The author delves into the history of the street, one street - maybe one of the most famous streets in the entire country, in easily the most famous neighborhood in the country. She weaves together the stories of her life and the lives of those around her with such clarity, and they all flow together well as we see the street change and grow, as the author does along with it.

Florio leaves no stone unturned as she described her unconventional upbringing. Raised on opera and theatre life by her patents, she spent her days and nights among an eclectic and eccentric mix of people who would each leave their definitive mark on her, shaping Florio into the adult she would become.

The author lovingly recounts all the good and bad related to roaming the Village as a child, youth, and adult. We see firsthand the neighbors who came and went, the cast of characters who simply could not be made up - this is the Village. I found her story about accidentally dumping water on John Lennon's head quite amusing, which apparently he did too. Yoko, on the other hand, did not seem as pleased. Reading her account of the brief time in which Sid Vicious was her next-door neighbor was especially touching.

There were also plenty of encounters with regular every-day people as well and Florio specifically recounts the AIDS crisis hitting the Village hard. To read of her pain and fear in the wake of the attacks on September 11th was especially powerful - this place she loved so much, this place that had seeped into her bones and became part of her, was suddenly unrecognizable. Still, she slowly but surely found her way back from those awful days, weeks, months.

Greenwich Village and Bank Street in particular owe a huge debt of gratitude to Florio. She so beautifully captured the beating heart of the neighborhood, describing with such perfection the changing village over the passing decades. The Village of her youth is long gone, and typing those words truly brings more than a touch of sadness; never again will such a mix of colorful characters exist in this way together. The culture that thrived despite the truly glaring differences of those who inhabited the buildings along Bank Street can never be recaptured in reality, so I am thankful that Florio has done that so splendidly here.

This is a must-read for anyone with a love for all things NYC. Highly highly recommended.

NetGalley ARC | Gilded Age Cocktails: History, Lore, and Recipes from America's Golden Age

 

I received a free digital ARC from NYU Press via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

First let's take a moment and admire that cover, shall we? So simple and elegant, but very powerful. I don't even like martinis and the moment I saw this one I thought, "Sure why not?"

This gem of a book makes me want to through a Gilded Age themed dinner party and serve each and every one of these delicious treats. I can't of course, because of COVID, but some day, right? We can dream at least.

The books is divided into sections that touch on various aspects of life/society of the time, and the many drinks that went along with them. My personal favorite was the section related to signature drinks of the Ivy League schools. You don't have to go to an elite East Coats school to drink like it, as the recipes for each drink discussed is produced here for the reader.

One thing I really loved about this book was the history - big surprise. I thought it was so fascinating how the various drinks came to made, how bartenders' experimented with their craft in order to come up with new drinks to satisfy patrons. Seeing the evolution or creation of so many of the drinks we know and (sometimes) love today - such as the Manhattan - was a fun bit of history to read about.

I really love books like this, that focus on a specific micro history and encourage anyone with similar interests to give this one a read. You might just find a new favorite drink!

NetGalley ARC | Enchanted New York: A Walk Along Broadway Through Manhattan's Magical Past

 

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I love New York City. I am thoroughly obsessed. I have yet to visit myself, and have been waiting until my daughter is a little bit older, so she will be able to appreciate it as much as I do. As a result of my love for this city I have never been to, any book relating to the history of NYC especially and people/places/events in general, gets my attention immediately.

This would make for a great guide book, if you are interested in the magical side of the City That Never Sleeps. The author takes readers on a ride starting at the Battery and weaving up Broadway, making various pitstops at locations along the way to introduce a whole cast of characters that even many New Yorkers might not know once strolled the sidewalks of the most famous street in the world. We meet magicians, Freemasons, alchemists, seers, spiritualists, occultists, mediums, wizards, and fortune tellers, among many others.

As you can imagine, this is not your average history book. The author begins in 1789, the year George Washington was inaugurated as our first president. From there, the book is split into seven distinct chapters and stays on a roughly chronological course right up to the present day. Within each chapter, the author further breaks down the history by location. There are tons of stories and anecdotes, all related to that wider theme or topic of the chapter.

Personally I found some of the stories more interesting than others, only based on my preference - for example, I am not terribly interested in alchemy. Even so, those stories did not distract from those topics I was interested in.

I do have to say that this did take me longer than usual to get through, but I think that is more due to the nature of the book itself, almost as an encyclopedia of information. Some might be able to read this straight through cover to cover. Others might enjoy it more as one they skip around in, from one entry to another in a different chapter perhaps. I do think the book can be enjoyed either way.

Highly recommended, especially to those who love any and all history of NYC.

NetGalley ARC | The House on Henry Street: The Enduring Life of a Lower East Side Settlement

I received a free digital ARC from the publishing via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This book is utterly captivating and I could not put it down.

The author deftly weaves together a beautiful and sweeping narrative of how the House on Henry Street came into being after its founder, Lillian Ward, determined that there had to be a way to help the city's most vulnerable populations in need of the most care and services. It began in March of 1893, when a young girl came to Ward for help, the girl's mother was dying. She'd just given birth, but the doctor had abandoned the woman when she could not pay the fee for his services. It was this pivotal moment when twenty-six year old Lillian Ward, a nurse, decided to act. Through her determination, commitment to the poor, and generous benefactors, she was able to establish the Henry Street Settlement, an organization that still exists to this very day. Along the way we see how the settlement responded during times of crisis - the outbreak of the AIDS epidemic, the rise of violence, drug use, and homelessness in the 70s and 80s, and providing relief during the Great Depression. We also see how the Settlement fought on behalf of those the many they served, including immigrants and the working poor who had very little support.

The book is incredibly well-researched and truly a love letter to this place that has stood the test of time, constantly advocating for those who could not do so for themselves. I knew nothing about these settlement homes prior to reading this, and even have to admit that when I first requested the book I misread the title, substituting tenement for settlement. I am not sure why my brain did that, but it did. So, I was surprised by the content, but yet still engrossed immediately in the story. The idea of creating these settlement homes began in the 1890s and through that decade and the next Progressive-minded folks pushed to create these homes that would become so vital for the neighborhoods surrounding them. The author makes many references to Jane Addams and her founding of Hull House in Chicago, another topic I plan to explore further.

The book is divided into three sections that cover various important points in the life of the settlement. It is difficult to even choose a favorite portion of the book, though I suppose I am a little partial to the early days as Wald and her staff worked tirelessly on behalf of those they served. It is almost baffling to me that something like this could have been founded and thrived in the very late 1800s/early 1900s, yet we cant seem to organize quite on this level or with this ease of access today. This specific settlement house still does, but I mean on this level in other cities. As a teacher I routinely see how fractured so many services are and how many different organizations provide a myriad of services to our students in need. But what the Henry Street house did so perfectly from the start was to manage these services from one main organization. Since then certain services have been turned over to other agencies, but the majority remain with the place where they began. At the time of its funding, Wald and her team focused on four areas in which they could best serve the community: nursing, civic work, social work, and country work. There were arts programs including classes in art mediums like pottery, dance classes, and a theatre that has operated nearly the entire time the settlement has been in existence. The facilities offered (or still offer today) an on-site residence, daycare, access to health care, food, and clothing (including sewing lessons still offered today).

There's still so much more, but I don't know that I can actually do this book justice.

Highly recommended.

Prime First Reads | The Club King: My Rise, Reign, and Fall in New York Nightlife

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

You can imagine my excitement when for the month of March, Amazon First Reads had a non-fiction title! Even though there were a couple fiction titles I was marginally interested in, I knew I had to snap this one up because it is about NYC and the Club Kid scene in the 80s and 90s. I knew Gatien's name but did not know much about him and boy, was this book a real roller coaster.

The book was kind of a slow start for me, only because Gatien detailed his early years growing up in a working-class town in Canada. It is not that this part is boring, and it certainly helped in shaping Gatien's life, but I wanted to hear about NYC. We'd get there eventually, but not without stops first in his hometown with his very first club. Then came Florida, Atlanta, New York, Chicago, and London. But it was in New York City that he truly shined, running multiple clubs and at work seven days a week to make sure everything was ready come opening. I almost get dizzy thinking about the sheer amount of work that went into planning each theme night, day after day after day. The behind-the-scenes look definitely gives me a greater appreciation for the bars and clubs I frequented in college. Though obviously not on the scale of a NYC club, there was certainly much work to be done during the day to prepare for the doors opening that night.

Though Gatien had clubs in all the cities mentioned above, it was his four in New York City that truly made him into the ruler of nightlife. He would not have gotten where he did had he not opened his first club while still in his hometown, and each club along the way helped Gatien gain the experience and confidence he needed in order to be successful on the big stage. At his peak, Gatien was operating four clubs - Club USA, Limelight, Palladium, and Tunnel - simultaneously. He employed a staff that ran like a well-oiled machine and that is what made him so successful for so long. They were professionals who took their jobs seriously and did what they were paid to do. That does not mean they didn't screw up, but they were a family and they took care of one another.

It was truly astonishing to me to read about all the musical acts who appeared in Gatien's clubs over the years before his fall. Jay-Z, Biggie, 50 Cent, and so many more that it would take forever to list them all. And it was not only future hip-hop stars and icons who regularly took to the stage, but musical acts from all genres - grunge, techno, rock, and of course house. Gatien and his team made his clubs The Place to be, and this was also done in no small part thanks to the Club Kids who thrived in the spotlight, enjoying every moment of terrifying suburban housewives being interviewed by Phil Donohue.

All good things must come to an end though, and end they would. As the district attorney, Rudy Giuliani made it his personal mission it seems to completely bring down and destroy Gatien's livelihood. Naturally there are two sides to every story and we can only trust that all parties are telling the truth. When there is discrepancies and contradictions, someone is lying. They may not know they are lying, but they are nonetheless. Keeping the weapons out of his clubs was obviously a lot easier than the drugs, but I would have challenged Guiliani to find ANY club in that era where there was zero drug use. It would have been impossible, because no club like that existed. There are so many conflicting stories and Gatien maintains he was not selling drugs or hiring dealers to sell in his clubs. Others who were there at the time say otherwise. The claim that Gatien was pushing the sales seems like a bit of a stretch because he was already making so much money. On the other hand, it is super easy to always want more money and providing drugs right there in the club was a good way to get it. Instead of cleaning up the streets and going after the dealers literally standing on the street corners and in the parks, Giuliani's singular focus is on Gatien, which in itself is highly suspect. It was almost as if it was personal. Even so, I have a hard time believing Gatien was nearly so innocent as he claims and there is likely truth to both sides of the story. Unrelated: never forget that Rudy Giuliani is a despicable human being and bat-shit crazy.

Gatien is the first to admit that some of his success had to do with the sheer luck of being in the right place at the right time. But even so, he was a born hustler who worked his ass off to climb higher and higher, to create the Next Big Thing. Also on display is his business acumen, and the amount of attention he paid to detail in order to keep things fresh and new in each of his clubs. He was involved in every aspect of the club, from the designs to the construction, choosing the right sound and light systems, the perfect artwork, the locations of the bars, and more. Gatien did not rely on the same gimmick for each place, and when he finally sold off his interests in all other clubs, sticking only to his New York playground, this is even more obvious. Gatien was willing to gamble and take chances that others might not have been, and it paid off in spades. He found unique buildings for his clubs to call home and that in itself was huge - abandoned buildings that served other purposes before became the places to be on any given night where the music pounded and the alcohol flowed. He also made some very astute observations early on that served him well over his a career - number one being that hiring a DJ to spin the music would cost far less than band fees. Another facet of the story I found especially interesting was that of how Gatien realized he could welcome the crowds that typically enjoyed hip-hop and rap, while also keeping the clubs free from violence. In that time, many clubs would not play this music because of the men and as a result, the violence that came with the male-dominated crowds. Gatien figured out that if he were to let women into the club for free throughout the early evening, and he put a limit on the amount of men let in at a time, then he could make bank on these hip-hop/rap nights while keeping everyone relatively safe. It definitely helped that Gatien employed great security teams, and patrons were searched before entering the clubs.

While I have few complaints about the book, there is one that has bothered me quite a bit. I can push aside the glossing-over of Gatien's surface-scratching-only drug-use that he managed to control for the most part, and even ignore the repetition of him needing to find the next big thing, getting restless whenever he achieved a new level of success. I can not though, overlook the relatively little space given to the Club Kids in general who made New York City nightlife into what it was. He does discuss Michael Alig and the murder of Andre "Angel" Melendez; it is interesting that he is very quick to distance himself from Melendez and say he was not welcome at any of Gatien's clubs. While doing so, he does maintain he worked with Alig for quite some time. It is interesting to note all the discrepancies related to the murder of Melendez. Some of those discrepancies have come from Alig and his roommate Robert Riggs. The stories range from Melendez being killed in self-defense by Riggs when he attacked Alig in an argument over a debt, to Riggs killing Melendez for Gatien because Gatien was under investigation for the rampant drug-use in his clubs. We will never know the whole story and I certainly did not expect it to be covered in-depth here. But I did expect much more about the Club Kids, the larger-than-life personalities who brought bodies back to the clubs after the initial scare of the AIDS crisis, when young men were dying at alarming rates and people were terrified to go out. It is quite flummoxing to me that a book about Peter Gatien and his clubs would not include significant amount of attention given to the scene at the time. They helped MAKE his clubs into the hot spots they became.

Gatien discusses at length the case built against him. It all really began when a teenager from New Jersey killed himself and club life was blamed for his tragic choice. From that moment, Gatien's days as the king of NY nightlife were numbered. He also discusses informants working against him, and does his best to discredit all of them, which he is pretty successful at. It became Giuliani's obsession, to bring Gatien down. The Feds were willing to pay many who themselves were still dealing drugs, breaking the laws themselves, in order to get Gatien. Lots of shady stuff all around going on, but I will leave that for you to discover. While Gatien was not found guilty of drug charges, he was charged and plead guilty to tax evasion. For that, he was deported back to Canada, unable to stay in the country he loved so desperately.

Overall, I really enjoyed this read. It is not without its problems, but the vicarious experience of club life in the 80s and 90s is worth the time. Here are a couple quotes I really liked, or had an impact on me as I read.

"The week after Biggie Smalls died at the tender age of twenty-four, Flex cued up 'Hypnotize,' and I watched as three thousand people in the club chanted along or silently wept. That night of mourning deepened the bonds of the community, getting beyond neighborhood rivalries or the East-Coast-vs.-West-Coats rap wars. The heartrending scene epitomized Tunnel Sundays for me. By design or by accident, we had managed to generate a real sense of kinship, an impression that everyone present was part of something great" (67%).

"I could have survived sleeping on a concrete shelf for a bed and eating shitty prison food. I could have faced being pummeled by repeated legal proceedings. But getting exiled from the land that I loved killed a part of my soul" (98%).

"A blackened shroud, a hand-me-down gown of rags and silk, a costume fit for one who sits and cries for all tomorrow's parties...Like Lou Reed and Nico, I'm feeling elegiac for all the good times that will never be. They won't come around like they did in the golden age. I was there, and if you were there, too, you know the truth. Those were the days when the party never ended, and it was goddamn fabulous" (99%).

Highly recommended.

Book Review: Beastie Boys Book

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Okay, so five stars, obviously. I fucking love this book. It is a beautiful tribute to a time, place, decades-spanning career, and a friend gone far too soon.

I love Beastie Boys. My youngest uncle is only 11 years older than me, so I heard a lot of music I probably should not have, fairly early in life (but no worries, not License to Ill. At least not all of it. Okay, just 'Fight For Your Right (To Party'). As such, I play their music for my own daughter (stop the pearl-clutching, I only play the songs with no cussing - impossible to find - or I just shout a different word over the cussing, or I just tell her not to sing it. She is especially fond of 'Intergalactic' - she is actually singing that as I type this review - and 'An Open Letter to NYC').

I have every album, even 'Some Old Bullshit', which is not even full-on Beasties. I had a huge poster from the Hello, Nasty shoot of the three on my ceiling in high school - it was so huge there was no space on the wall big enough.

And yet, I have not been able to write this review until now, despite having started and finishing it in three days last November. I would have finished it even sooner than that, but I put off reading 'The Last Gig', because I could not bear for the book to end. I could not bear for Yauch to really be gone, again. I started crying when I finally picked it up to finish it. I cried reading that whole section. And I cried long after I closed the book and was officially finished reading it. Yauch left this huge fucking hole in the hearts and lives of everyone who knew him and this book is such a beautiful tribute to the group as a whole, those who helped them along the way, and Yauch himself. Though he has been gone now seven years, he is very much alive here and it is clear on every page just how much ADROCK and Mike D love and miss him.

Everything you could ever want to know about the guys and their career is here, recalled in remarkable details. Horovitz and Diamond are truly exceptional writers, something that is not at all surprising, given their catalog of work. We are pulled along for the ride starting in 1981 (two years before I was born) when the group started out as a hardcore punk band. They evolved into rappers and signed with Def Jam, only to split very messily after Licensed to Ill became the first hip hop album to ever make it to #1. They take us to Los Angeles next, and we follow their evolution as the guys grow and mature, from Paul's Boutique up through Hot Sauce. For thirties years, Beastie Boys defied genres, grew as musicians, became social activists, and have left their unique mark on the world of music and pop culture forever.

Have I said before how much I fucking love these guys?

As often happens when I am super into a book, I rarely stop to take any notes of things that I want to mention in my review. As such, this review is pretty much based off how the book made me feel, and even now just thinking about it, I get sad because Yauch was not here to contribute. But on the other hand, part of the magic of this book is how it truly is a tribute to him, both overtly and subtly. Here are a few of the notes I took as I was reading, and quotes that clung to me:

Page 132: It's so beautiful and dirty and perfect. This is the NYC that I wanted to live in, the NYC that created Beastie Boys.

On pages 318-319, in the essay 'Yo Paul, This is Allen', ADROCK recounts the story of Paul's Boutique, a store in Brooklyn, and the ad for the store that he used to put on mixtapes he made. Ultimately, of course, their second album would become 'Paul's Boutique', and the store closed not long after the album came out. Horovits wonders if the two incidents are related, but they couldn't possibly be, right? Anyway, Yauch contacted the phone company and paid to get the phone number for the store after it closed. Because they'd put the ad on the album, they got all kinds of messages from people who called the number. The answering machine tape would fill up, the line would then just be a busy signal, and people kept calling and calling and calling. Eventually someone hacked the four digit code and changed the outgoing message. Yauch would change it, and then it would be changed again next time he listened to it. "He'd (Yauch) unplug the machine for a while. Plus it back in six months later. Only for more weirdness. So he left the machine off for years. Every once in a while it would come out of retirement for a couple weeks. And maybe, just maybe, it still does." I couldn't resist calling the number, just to see if by chance the answering machine was plugged in. Hearing Yauch's voice on the outgoing message would've been something. I let it ring about twenty times before I could bring myself to hang up. It made me really sad to do so. If you want to call the number yourself to give it a try, it's 718-498-1043.

On page 522 are two photos. It shows all three on a stage, looking out on the crowd. Yauch is closest to the foreground, and you can tell who is each Beastie, despite their backs being to the camera. The opposite page is one of the shortest essays, only one page, titled The Last Gig. The guys headlined Bonnaroo, using the daytime to record the video for "Too Many Rappers" with Nas. 

These are the two pages that gave me pause, because this was it. ADROCK recalls how it was another normal day, messing around before the show. As the essay comes to a close, he laments the fact that in life, things never really come full circle, and mentions all the people who were not there for the final show, though they didn't know at the time that's what it was. Only the benefit of hindsight allowed this introspective thought. I started crying when I saw the photos and read the essay title. I bawled the entire way down the page. I closed the book there and cried a while afterward. I would love to quote the entire essay here, but instead I will leave the last few lines:

"Me, Adam+Mike were older and we knew it. Still very much in the game, though, getting ready to start all over again. Headlining a huge festival is very different from a nice turnout at CBGB. But shit, man, we didn't know it was gonna be the last show we'd ever play" (page 523).

Mike D writes on page 549: Over the years the band transformed from a non-stop recording and touring machine into something sustainable, something that we could all come back to when we wanted and needed it. Grown-up things happened to us. We had our own families, kids, separate interests, the whole deal. But we would still come back together to have fun and make stuff. And we would be coming back together today if Yauch was still alive.

This gutted me all over again.

In this glorious love letter to NYC, to music, to Yauch, there is nothing but honesty. If you are of the mindset that the Beasties are still the same beer-swilling frat boys they originally meant to make fun of, but ultimately became in the License to Ill era, I beg you to read this book. Listen to any other album (my personal faves are 'Ill Communication', 'Hello, Nasty', 'To the Five Boroughs' and Hot Sauce) and see how they evolved into one of the greatest musical acts of all time. Here once again, ADROCK and Mike D completely own up to what giant assholes they became very early on with all the douche-tastic misogyny running rampant. They claim it, they don't hold back, and they apologize for it with all sincerity. Consider the line from "Sure Shot", off Ill Communication, where MCA comes out with the apology, "I want to say a little something that's long overdue/The disrespect to women has got to be through/To all the mothers and the sisters and the wives and friends/I wanna offer my love and respect til the end". Original Beastie Kate Schellenbach is given space to share her side of the story, what it looked like from the outside when she was essentially fired from the group. Both in the book and subsequent interviews following its publication, the guys are genuinely bothered by the shitty things they said and did in their earliest work. They are not the same people now that they were in 1986, and we are extremely lucky for that because the music they made from Paul's Boutique and beyond is truly and greatly grand on the largest scale you can imagine. Don't get me wrong, I love License to Ill because of how obnoxious it is and even then, it is still fun. But Beastie Boys grew up quickly, and the catalog we have now is truly something special. All the more special because it is all we will ever have, as the band ceased to exist the moment Yauch passed away.

The book is much more than a book. It feels like one long conversation with Horovitz and Diamond, sitting around telling ridiculous and almost unbelievable stories that even they acknowledge as sounding totally crazy, but are nonetheless true. They take turns telling about what it was like, three teenagers running around, with NYC as their playground and a character all its own in the many anecdotes recounted, as they explored the music scene that they would soon become part of. The liner notes, guest essays, articles, letters, photos, artwork, anything and everything necessary to tell the story of a group that transcended genres while remaining true to hip-hop.

I can not recommend this book enough. Easily one of the best books I have ever read. It is so moving and beautiful and silly and happy and sad. It is everything an autobiography should be.

Miss you, Yauch

Beastie Boys forever

Book Review: Report From Ground Zero + Jon Stewart Kicking Ass

Rating: 5 Stars

I was all set to do a double-review post with this book and another about September 11th, until I saw that Jon Stewart was trending on Twitter earlier this morning, and as I just checked again tonight, he still is.

I greatly admire Jon Stewart. I never missed an episode of The Daily Show when he hosted for all those years, and appreciated the fact that, while he clearly leans Liberal, he was willing to take any politician to task for being an idiot or doing something stupid. Throughout the election season I hoped and hoped and hoped he would come out of hibernation and sure enough, he appeared on Colbert's show and my heart was happy.

Since his retirement from the daily grind of news and politics, Stewart has not been idle. He has been an extremely active and vocal supporter of the First Responders Fund and today he was trending because once again, Congress can not get their shit together and do right by these brave men and women who ran into burning buildings in the hopes of rescuing as many as possible. Many have become dangerously ill in the aftermath and instead of doing the right thing and making funding for their care permanent, these assholes think that making the First Responders come back constantly to answer their stupid questions is a good idea.

Please watch this clip and listen to Stewart's verbal ass-kicking of those who could not even be bothered to show up for the hearing. Because of this event occurring today, this is why I felt I had to review this particular book on its own, because the men and women who ran in when everyone else was running out did their jobs exactly as they were supposed. The least we can do now is our jobs, and make sure they and their families are taken care of.

I am so glad the First Responders have such a dedicated champion in Stewart, and I hope Congress wakes the fuck up and stops dicking around with their health.

Now, onto the book...

It was really hard to read. I cried a lot. There were stretches of time that I had to put the book down and give myself a break. It was traumatic then, and it's traumatic to this day. At around 100 pages in, I was considering DNF-ing it - while simultaneously giving it five stars, That might be a first, no? But I kept going, because these are stories that need to be told. If we truly are going to #NeverForget, then we owe it to all who perished to learn their stories, and those who survived, to listen as they recount the terrible things they saw that day. Otherwise that hashtag promise doesn't mean a thing.

Imagine being a parent, and also being a fire-fighter. Your child, a fire-fighter as well, is among the missing. Day after day after day you go to Ground Zero, hoping and praying that today is the day. Today will be the day you find your baby, and you get to take him home to your family, and lay him to rest.

At the beginning of the book the author listed the name of all the firefighters lost that day. Every time a new account started, or a new name was mentioned, I would flip to that list and hope that particular person survived. I was disappointed many times.

I connected deeply to the stories themselves, either from survivors or from the loved ones of those who died. Their words are so critically important, we can not ever lose those stories. The part I struggled with a lot was the author's own habit of inserting himself into the narrative. His expertise mattered in the realm of explaining how the crews were sent out, the difference between the companies (ladder vs engine), and so on. I have no concrete knowledge of how firehouses operate and I found those details helpful in understanding how and why so many from certain houses were lost, while fewer firefighters died from other houses. But the rest felt kind of like he was also showing off, and it honestly pains me to write that, because this book is still important and it is still a must-read for those interested in learning all they can about September 11th. The author talked about many of the firehouses he visited in the aftermath, and of going down to Ground Zero often, and we were usually given a side order of how popular he was with the firemen, though he was retired, and how he knows so many people. He mentions his previous book a few times, Report from Engine Company 82, and I am torn between believing that he is using it to show that he is knowledgeable vs him showing off.

Even with the off-putting tone of the author personally, there is value here. Highly recommended.

Gone to New York: Adventures in the City

Rating: 5 Stars

This is a lovely little collection of essays about a city I love so deeply, I can feel it down into the very depths of my soul. Though I have never been there, I feel like NYC is where I belong (second only to Edinburgh of course), and when I finally get to visit I both fear and look forward to never wanting to leave. I fear also that the city I have built up in my head over the years could not possibly truly live up to what I think it will be - but this is NYC we are talking about. The chances are good that it will be exactly what I want it to be, and more.

I have enjoyed reading Frazier's work in The New Yorker and found this collection easy to read in a matter of an hour or two. As with any essay collection, some pieces will be stronger than others, but overall I felt like this one flowed well and there was no essay that I finished and thought, "Wow, that is so out of place among these other essays." I might be a little biased toward Frazier and his work, because I have enjoyed it for so long, but even so, he crafts his tales well.

In this set, we see New York in all her glory - quirks, oddities, curiosities, and all. That is in part what draws me to the city, and perhaps it was best said in the final season of F·R·I·E·N·D·S (I know, I know, not an entirely realistic portrayal of life as a twenty-something in NYC, blah blah blah) when Chandler and Monica are leaving the city and this doesn't sit well with the others:

(only the first two minutes is really applicable)

We see New York from Frazier's perspective, so in this instance the book is as much about him as it is the city he loves. We see how he sees the city, but also how this place has impacted him, how it has changed him over the years. It is a strong message, that we become part of whatever place we inhabit, and it becomes part of us. Sometimes home is not the place where you are born, it is the place where you truly live.

My favorite essay in this collection was "The Morning After". In it Frazier writes of September 11th, 2001 and its aftermath with such truth and clarity even in the face of such confusion and terror. He watched his home, under attack, and the emotions are all right there at the surface. I could really picture it all in my mind, over and over, images made even more real with his words accompanying them.

Frazier loves New York, that passion is obvious. From his minute observations in one essay, to his grander vision in others, he writes powerfully, and well. He is someone who you would want to take you on a tour, to show you some of those quirks, and point out all of the things that make New York, well, New York. Frazier does not give undue praise or criticism, the city is his and he loves it, warts and all. It is gritty and real. Imperfect and wonderful.

Highly recommended.

Queen of Thieves: The True Story of "Marm" Mandelbaum and Her Gangs of New York

EDIT: 10-3-19

Rating: 0 Stars

Author Behaving Badly Alert

I love when authors throw around 'credentials', as if that somehow exempts others from having opinions about their trash books. As for the movie option...hopefully they have a great screen writer to deal with horribly sexist and repetitive source material 😂

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Original review posted 12-4-18
Rating: 1.5 Stars

Such a wholly fascinating woman deserves a much better book.

Prior to reading this, I had never heard of Fredericka Mandelbaum, described as a "poor Jewish woman who rose to the top of her profession in organized crime during the Gilded Age in New York City" (from the book page on Goodreads). When I found this one, it was a no-brainer, OF COURSE I would read it. Gilded Age New York is on of my favorite periods to read about and I am always on the lookout for new subjects from the era.

The problem then, is literally everything else. I can not count the number of times her appearance is referenced. We are told as many ways as possible that she was a large and unattractive woman. Finally the author gave in on what he seemed to be waiting for the whole time and simply called her fat. It was truly gross how often her physical characteristics were mentioned - as though it is somehow unusual that supposed ugly people find success in whatever avenue they pursue for their career of choice? Whatevs, I've no time for that. And normally, I would have chucked this to the DNF pile after the fifth, twelfth, zillionth time her appearance was mentioned. But I persevered because I know of no other books about "Marm" and wanted to glean as much information as I could, despite a completely sub-par attempt to give this woman a proper biography. One might be able to shrug this off despite the ABSURD amounts of repetition, except the author then goes on and does the same thing to one of Mandelbaum's proteges, Sophie Lyons, who he mentions time and again as being beautiful, using her looks to get out of trouble, etc. The complete and utter reliance on talking about appearances was not only ridiculous, but repetitive, repetitive, repetitive. Like, almost word-for-word repetitive sometimes, as we will get to in a moment in regards to the other colorful characters who fill the pages.

I am trying to not be a total negative nelly in reviews because writing is hard, and authors pour so much of themselves into their books. But said book has to be edited, it just does, there is no way around it. I feel like perhaps another couple of rounds with a good editor could drastically improve the text. I was at first impressed by the use of contemporary sources, but for quite a stretch there it seemed that those sources were taking up more room than the author's own commentary and/or analysis of said sources. I feel like this book has potential, but will never see that as long as the book remains as-is. Mandelbaum's story is practically THEE American Dream. She reached a height of wealth that others could only dream of, with the protection of the police, judges, and Tammany Hall. While it was not by honest means, for a Jewish woman to do so, while her husband turned a blind eye and knew "nothing" of her fencing stolen goods, is an honest to goodness miracle.

Despite all the repetitiveness, I did learn quite a bit about Mandelbaum's life, family, and her career. Her trial is covered as well, and on top of that, her escape to Canada. We are also, again REPEATEDLY, reminded of who her attorneys were, that they are partners, that she retained them for several thousand dollars a year, that she aided her circle of thieves in getting out of charges, who her attorneys were, that they are partners, that she retained them for several thousand...oh wait, sorry, I just realized I was REPEATING MYSELF.

I did select a few quotes of interest, because I do feel like Mandelbaum's story is worth telling, worth knowing. It just needs to be in the hands of a better editor, and possibly writer as well.

"At the height of her criminal career, every New Yorker knew their best chance to realize a profit from their ill-gotten gains was to trust "Marm" Mandelbaum. She was also partial to helping young women get a foothold in the criminal world. She was once quoted as saying that she wanted to help ant women who "are not wasting life being a housekeeper." Because of her efforts to help women find work, even if it was in the world of crime, some contemporary feminist historians view Mandelbaum as a Gilded Age heroine for her willingness to assist women finding work and helping them make more money than they could have as housekeepers, maids, seamstresses, or factory workers" (2%).

More than a couple times, the author mentions that Mandelbaum opened a "school for crime". How would this even work? Like, seriously, the logistics simply are not there. How does one go about opening a school for crime, and operating la-di-da like it is no big deal. Obviously police officers on the beat would have to be paid, but how was this ever a thing? We are given almost zero other information about it, which I expected because it would have had to have been pretty secretive - but how do we then have any knowledge of it to begin with? The story concludes with the author stating Mandelbaum "...allegedly had to close the school when it was discovered that that son of one of the city's most prominent police officials was enrolled in it" (3%). Really? Later the author comes back around to this topic, as he often and repetitively did, but this time at least added further information about this so-called 'crime school'. He detailed the 'courses' offered and marveled at the fact that the school was quite near the police headquarters. Mandelbaum apparently offered all kinds of classes to any aged pupil, and both male and female students. They learned about burglaries, safe-cracking, and blackmailing rackets. Additional advanced classes were taught as well in those areas, while supposed "doctoral level" classes were offered in confidence schemes and blackmail. Students who were particularly astute were given free advanced courses, and the "best and brightest graduates were offered salaried positions with Mandelbaum, but they had to turn over everything they stole directly to her and no one else". The school operated for roughly six years according to the author, until again we are told that the son of a police official was discovered as being enrolled, and thus Mandelbaum closed the school. I suppose when you pay the right people, anything is possible.

I did appreciate the author really setting the backdrop for how and why a life of crime might be necessary for survival in this period. it might sound a little sensational to someone unfamiliar with the city at the time, but I do feel like this quote sums up quite accurately what life what like at that time for those not part of the 'gilded' set.

"The worst of all the slums was the villainous Five Points in the Lower East Side, a den of almost unspeakable gore and horror. It was the home to the city's most vicious criminals, robbers, prostitutes, and confidence men. Five Points derived its name from the crisscrossing intersection of Anthony, Cross, Mulberry, Orange, and Water Streets. There were no legitimate businesses in Five Points except for a very few grocery, dry goods, and clothing shops. It was filled with narrow streets alleys running every which way...the nearly falling down tenements and sheds there housed hundreds of poor immigrants who were at the mercy of the gangs, many of whom worked for absentee landlords collecting rent...Day or night Five Points was the scene of an uncontrolled abundance of murder, mayhem, robbery, and theft. No one, including the police, dared to venture into this den of thieves and murderers..." (7%).

Here I have also chosen to include some of the many instances where the author refers to Mandelbaum's appearance. I did not include all of them, as there were so many. By 8% her height and weight had been referenced three times.

"At close to six feet tall and 250 pounds, she was a formidable presence. She was easy to pick out of any crowd" (8%) Not so bad, right? But then...

"...her clients, both sellers and buyers, knew that this huge, dark-eyed, corpulent woman didn't question whether the merchandise she traded in was legitimately or illegitimately acquired" (10%).

Also: "...as an outcast herself, both physically (her height and weight making her stand out)..." (10%)

And "Already an imposing physical presence, she kept her outward appearance unobtrusive...despite her criminal vocation and her height and her girth..." (20%)

And still more. "Mandelbaum saw in the young and beautiful Lyons the image of how she wished she had been. Mandelbaum, tall, fat, and unattractive was drawn to the waif-like beauty of Lyons" (37%). There are others also, but I think by this time one gets the point. The author is utterly fixated on what he perceives as her grotesque appearance and can not leave it for a moment. It is a constant throughout and totally unimportant.

While on the whole, this book is in need of some serious changes for it to be a worthwhile read, there is valuable information in there if you have the patience to wade through the rubbish and find it. Mandelbaum was no saint, but she was an unique woman living in difficult times. She managed to stay out of jail throughout her entire career, not for lack of trying on the part of reformers seeking to end the corruption at all levels. Even during the trial that would effectively end her career in NYC, she managed to elude the Pinkerton detectives who had so painstakingly built a case against her for months. Mandelbaum was highly intelligent and a more than capable foe for those seeking to put her and similar operations out of business for good.

"On February 26th, 1894, Fredericka Mandelbaum died in her home in Hamilton surrounded by her family and Stoude. The cause of death was reported as Bright's Disease, described in modern medicine as a chronic form of nephritis or kidney disease. She was sixty-five years old.  Although the obituary notice that appeared in the Hamilton Spectator took note of her criminal past, it called her 'a woman of kindly disposition, broad sympathies, and large intelligence'".

Mandelbaum deserved a much better biography than this.