{"product_id":"broadway-a-history-of-new-york-city-in-thirteen-miles-9780393240108","title":"Broadway: A History of New York City in Thirteen Miles","description":"\u003cp\u003eAn eye-opening history of Manhattan told through its most celebrated street. In the early seventeenth century  in a backwater Dutch colony  there was a wide  muddy cow path that the settlers called the Brede Wegh. As the street grew longer  houses and taverns began to spring up alongside it. What was once New Amsterdam became New York  and farmlands gradually gave way to department stores  theaters  hotels  and  finally  the perpetual traffic of the twentieth centurys Great White Way. From Bowling Green all the way up to Marble Hill  Broadway takes us on a mile-by-mile journey up Americas most vibrant and complex thoroughfare  through the history at the heart of Manhattan. Today  Broadway almost feels inevitable  but over the past four hundred years there have been thousands who have tried to draw and erase its path. Following their footsteps  we learn why one side of the street was once considered more fashionable than the other; witness the construction of Trinity Church  the Flatiron Building  and the Ansonia Hotel; the burning of P. T. Barnums American Museum; and discover that Columbia University was built on the site of an insane asylum. Along the way we meet Alexander Hamilton  Emma Goldman  Edgar Allan Poe  John James Audubon  \"Bill the Butcher\" Poole  and the assorted real-estate speculators  impresarios  and politicians who helped turn Broadway into New Yorks commercial and cultural spine. Broadway traces the physical and social transformation of an avenue that has been both the \"Path of Progress\" and a \"street of broken dreams \" home to both parades and riots  startling wealth and appalling destitution. Glamorous  complex  and sometimes troubling  the evolution of an oft-flooded dead end to a canyon of steel and glass is the story of American progress. 53 photographs\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45647895199797,"sku":"ByrdShop_039324010X","price":21.48,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780393240108.jpg?v=1781699321","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/broadway-a-history-of-new-york-city-in-thirteen-miles-9780393240108","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}