2022.07.27 读什么书才能了解纽约

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The Economist reads | The Big Apple
What to read to understand New York
Our New York reporter picks four books and a documentary as the essential guide to America’s greatest city
Blick vom Rockefeller Center auf Manhatten, USA, New York City, Engl.: night shot, view from Rockefeller Center to Manhatten, New York City, USA, FOR SALE IN: UK ONLY.
Jul 27th 2022

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This article is part of our Summer reads series. Visit our collection to discover “The Economist reads” guides, guest essays and more seasonal distractions.

It does not take much to be a New Yorker. You don’t have to be born there, nor even to live there for long. Just move there. You will need to find a go-to bodega in order to feel at home. And you must learn how to say “not for nothing” in the right context. Much of this should come easy. Perhaps because New York serves as a character in so many film and television series, many people feel they know the great city even from a distance. In reality people, and that includes Gothamites, probably know less than they are letting on. Read these four books, and watch one documentary, however, and you’ll get a good grasp of why New York is the way it is.


The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York. By Robert Caro. Knopf; 1,296 pages; $22.99. Vintage; £25

During the covid-19 pandemic, in one broadcast video call after another New York’s politicians and journalists appeared with Robert Caro’s “The Power Broker” visible on their bookshelves. They may have been hoping to show that, as readers of the 1,296-page tome, they understood the city’s politics and how its government works. Published in 1974 and meticulously researched by Mr Caro, the book offers a detailed profile of Robert Moses, who held many positions simultaneously in municipal and state government. Never elected, but more powerful than most politicians, Moses reshaped the city and its surrounding region in the 20th century by building bridges, tunnels, roads, public housing and beaches. That didn’t come cheap, especially for the poor. Hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers were forced to move. Whole neighbourhoods were sliced off from the rest of the city by new motorways. The impact of this is still being felt. Last year Ritchie Torres, a Democratic congressman from the Bronx, called the Cross Bronx Expressway, devised by Moses over 70 years ago, “both literally and metaphorically a structure of racism”.

Greater than Ever: New York’s Big Comeback. By Daniel Doctoroff. PublicAffairs; 400 pages; $28 and £25

For decades after Robert Moses, big projects were not on the agenda. That changed after the attacks of September 11th 2001. Michael Bloomberg, a billionaire media mogul, was elected mayor even as the 16-acre pit, the remains of the destroyed Twin Towers, still burned. He and Daniel Doctoroff, his deputy mayor for economic development, used the rebuilding of Lower Manhattan as a catalyst for rethinking the functioning of the city more widely. “Greater than Ever” chronicles that transformation and how redevelopment radiated outwards from the World Trade Centre, to Tribeca, Chelsea, the High Line and eventually to previously neglected and more distant neighbourhoods in Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island. Almost half of the city was re-zoned, which helped to spur economic growth. Not everywhere has flourished, and critics grumble that many people lost out to gentrification. Read the memoir and you wonder how Mr Doctoroff might have fared had he been mayor himself.


The Island at the Centre of the World By Russell Shorto. Knopf; 384 pages; £16.95

Most American schoolkids learn that Peter Minuit, a Dutch colonist, bought the island of Manhattan from Native Americans in 1626 for goods supposedly worth $24. To know more about Manhattan’s earliest days as a Dutch colony, read “The Island at the Centre of the World”, a gripping, witty history. “Right from the start”, Mr Shorto writes, the residents of Nieuw Amsterdam were ambitious, polyglot, upwardly mobile, religiously tolerant (well, mostly), with mixed ethnicities and set on founding a centre of free trade. The same traits are evident in New York today. Peter Stuyvesant, who led the colony when the British took over, insisted on what are known as the “Articles of Capitulation”, a guarantee of rights and freedoms unparalleled in any English colony. These rights were later written into the city charter and had an effect well beyond Manhattan. A century later, New York State (and a few others) demanded that the new federal government add a Bill of Rights to the constitution.

Fear City: New York’s Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics. By Kim Phillips-Fein. Picador; 432 pages; $22

How quickly will New York bounce back from the lingering economic effects of the pandemic, if at all? Many office buildings remain half empty and shops unoccupied. Graffiti and squeegee men, panhandling car windscreen-washers, are reappearing. Crime is on the rise. Could New York now face a period like the 1970s when manufacturing decline hit the city, the population dwindled and confidence generally fell? New York took 25 years to recover from that. Then, with tax revenues low, budget cuts in the city—as outlined by Ms Phillips-Fein in “Fear City”—only made the situation worse. Those austerity measures helped bring the city to the brink of bankruptcy. They serve as a warning of what not to do in the face of a new threat.

More Summer reads
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• Finding yourself in the rivers, lakes and ponds of England
• The world’s most liveable cities
• Our Bartleby columnist picks beach reads for business folk
• Malala Yousafzai explains why girls must be free to learn—and to lead

Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised). Directed by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, Disney Plus and Hulu (2021)

Upstaged by Woodstock in upstate New York, the Harlem Music Festival was almost lost to time. For six Sundays in that same summer of 1969, in what is now called Marcus Garvey Park, 300,000 people heard the likes of B.B. King, the 5th Dimension, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Stevie Wonder and Nina Simone. Some of it was televised, all of it filmed, but it was never shown in cinemas until last year. As well as the music, it is mesmerising to watch the scenes of the crowd singing and dancing. Questlove whittled 40 hours of footage down to a powerfully joyous two-hour masterpiece. The documentary won numerous awards, including an Oscar. As much as it is about the music, Questlove has said, it is also about “black erasure”. African-American culture and artists have often been minimised, ignored or dismissed. For decades the footage languished in a basement. Questlove has saved an important moment in American—and not only black—culture. ■

Read more stories about New York, including How, after 9/11, New York built back better, how Eric Adams, its newish mayor, is tackling violence and how graffiti is making a come-back in the Big Apple.



经济学人》读后感 | 大苹果
读什么书才能了解纽约
我们的纽约记者挑选了四本书和一部纪录片，作为了解美国最伟大城市的基本指南。
Blick vom Rockefeller Center auf Manhatten, USA, New York City, Engl.: Night shot, view from Rockefeller Center to Manhatten, New York City, USA, for sale in: 仅限英国。
2022年7月27日


这篇文章是我们夏季读物系列的一部分。请访问我们的收藏，以发现 "经济学人读物 "指南、特邀文章和更多的季节性分心。

要成为一名纽约人并不需要太多。你不需要在那里出生，甚至不需要在那里生活很长时间。只要搬到那里。你将需要找到一个可以使用的酒馆，以便有家的感觉。你必须学会如何在正确的语境中说 "不为别的"。这其中的大部分应该是很容易的。也许是因为纽约是许多电影和电视剧中的一个角色，许多人觉得他们即使在远处也了解这个伟大的城市。在现实中，人们，包括哥谭人，可能知道的比他们说的要少。然而，阅读这四本书，并观看一部纪录片，你就能很好地掌握纽约为什么是这样的。


权力经纪人。罗伯特-摩西和纽约的衰落。作者：罗伯特-卡洛。Knopf；1296页；22.99美元。年份；25英镑

在covid-19大流行期间，在一个又一个广播视频电话中，纽约的政治家和记者出现在他们的书架上，罗伯特-卡罗的《权力经纪人》清晰可见。他们可能希望表明，作为这本1296页的巨著的读者，他们了解这个城市的政治和政府如何运作。该书出版于1974年，由卡洛先生精心研究，详细介绍了罗伯特-摩西的情况，他同时在市政府和州政府担任许多职务。摩西从未当选，但比大多数政治家更有权力，他在20世纪通过建造桥梁、隧道、道路、公共住房和海滩，重塑了城市及其周边地区。这并不便宜，特别是对穷人来说。数十万纽约人被迫搬迁。整个街区被新的高速公路从城市的其他地方割裂开来。这方面的影响仍在感受之中。去年，来自布朗克斯区的民主党议员里奇-托雷斯（Ritchie Torres）称摩西70多年前设计的跨布朗克斯高速公路 "无论从字面上还是从隐喻上都是一种种族主义的结构"。

比以往更伟大。纽约的大反攻。作者：Daniel Doctoroff。PublicAffairs；400页；28美元和25英镑

在罗伯特-摩西(Robert Moses)之后的几十年里，大项目并没有被提上日程。2001年9月11日的袭击后，情况发生了变化。迈克尔-布隆伯格，一个亿万富翁的媒体大亨，被选为市长，即使在16英亩的大坑里，被摧毁的双子塔的残骸仍然在燃烧。他和负责经济发展的副市长丹尼尔-多克托罗夫将曼哈顿下城的重建作为催化剂，更广泛地重新思考城市的运作。"比以往更伟大 "记录了这一转变，以及重建如何从世贸中心向外辐射到翠贝卡、切尔西、高线，并最终辐射到皇后区、布鲁克林和斯塔滕岛等以前被忽视的、更遥远的社区。几乎一半的城市被重新规划，这有助于刺激经济增长。并非所有地方都繁荣了，批评者抱怨说，许多人在绅士化中失去了机会。阅读这本回忆录，你会想，如果多克托罗夫先生亲自担任市长，他可能会有怎样的表现。


世界中心的岛屿》 作者：拉塞尔-肖托。Knopf；384页；16.95英镑

大多数美国学生都知道，1626年，荷兰殖民者彼得-米纽特（Peter Minuit）以据称价值24美元的货物从美国原住民手中买下了曼哈顿岛。要想了解曼哈顿最早作为荷兰殖民地的情况，请阅读《世界中心的岛屿》，这是一部扣人心弦、诙谐的历史。肖托先生写道，"从一开始"，新阿姆斯特丹的居民就雄心勃勃、多才多艺、积极进取、宗教宽容（嗯，大部分）、种族混杂，并致力于建立一个自由贸易中心。同样的特征在今天的纽约也很明显。当英国人接管该殖民地时，领导该殖民地的彼得-斯蒂文森坚持制定所谓的 "投降条款"，对权利和自由的保障在任何英国殖民地都是无与伦比的。这些权利后来被写入了城市宪章，其影响远远超出了曼哈顿。一个世纪后，纽约州（和其他一些州）要求新的联邦政府在宪法中增加一项权利法案。

恐惧之城。纽约的财政危机和紧缩政治的崛起。作者：金-菲利普斯-费恩。Picador；432页；22美元

纽约将如何迅速从大流行病挥之不去的经济影响中反弹出来，如果有的话？许多办公楼仍然半空，商店无人问津。涂鸦者和刮刀者，即抢劫汽车挡风玻璃的人，正在重新出现。犯罪率在上升。纽约现在会不会面临像20世纪70年代那样的时期，当时制造业衰退，人口减少，信心普遍下降？纽约花了25年时间才从中恢复过来。然后，随着税收的减少，城市的预算削减--正如菲利普斯-费恩女士在《恐惧之城》中所描述的那样--只会使情况变得更糟。这些紧缩措施使该市处于破产的边缘。它们是一个警告，说明在面对新的威胁时不应该做什么。

更多夏季读物
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灵魂之夏（......或者，当革命不能被转播的时候）。导演：阿米尔-"Questlove"-汤普森，Disney Plus和Hulu (2021)

被纽约州北部的伍德斯托克音乐节所取代，哈莱姆音乐节几乎被时间遗忘。在1969年那个夏天的六个星期天，在现在被称为马库斯-加维公园的地方，30万人听到了B.B.金、第五维度、格拉迪丝-奈特和皮普斯、史蒂夫-旺德和尼娜-西蒙等人的表演。其中一些被电视转播，所有的都被拍摄下来，但直到去年才在电影院放映。除了音乐之外，观看人群唱歌和跳舞的场景也令人着迷。Questlove将40个小时的录像缩减为一个强有力的欢乐的两小时的杰作。这部纪录片赢得了许多奖项，包括奥斯卡奖。奎斯特罗说，虽然这部影片是关于音乐的，但它也是关于 "黑人被抹杀 "的。非裔美国人的文化和艺术家经常被最小化、忽视或否定。几十年来，这段录像在地下室里被搁置。Questlove拯救了美国--不仅是黑人--文化中的一个重要时刻。■

阅读更多关于纽约的故事，包括9/11之后，纽约如何重建得更好，其新任市长埃里克-亚当斯如何解决暴力问题，以及涂鸦如何在大苹果中卷土重来。