{"product_id":"the-neighborhood-manhattan-forgot-audubon-park-and-the-families-who-shaped-it","title":"The Neighborhood Manhattan Forgot: Audubon Park and the Families Who Shaped It","description":"\u003cp\u003eAudubon Parks journey from farmland to cityscape  The study of Audubon Parks origins  maturation  and disappearance is at root the study of a rural society evolving into an urban community  an examination of the relationship between people and the land they inhabit. When John James Audubon bought fourteen acres of northern Manhattan farmland in 1841  he set in motion a chain of events that moved forward inexorably to the streetscape that emerged seven decades later. The story of how that happened makes up the pages of The Neighborhood Manhattan Forgot: Audubon Park and the Families Who Shaped It.  This fully illustrated history peels back the many layers of a rural society evolving into an urban community  enlivened by the people who propelled it forward: property owners  tenants  laborers  and servants. The Neighborhood Manhattan Forgot tells the intricate tale of how individual choices in the face of family dysfunction  economic crises  technological developments  and the myriad daily occurrences that elicit personal reflection and change of course pushed Audubon Park forward to the cityscape that distinguishes the neighborhood today.  A longtime evangelist for Manhattans Audubon Park neighborhood  author Matthew Spady delves deep into the lives of the two families most responsible over time for the anomalous arrangement of todays streetscape: the Audubons and the Grinnells. Buoyed by his extensive research  Spady reveals the darker truth behind John James Audubon (17851851)  a towering patriarch who consumed the lives of his family members in pursuit of his own goals. He then narrates how fifty years after Audubons death  George Bird Grinnell (18491938) and his siblings found themselves the owners of extensive property that was not yielding sufficient income to pay taxes  insurance  and maintenance. Like the Audubons  they planned an exit strategy for controlled change that would have an unexpected ending.  Beginning with the Audubons return to America in 1839  The Neighborhood Manhattan Forgot follows the many twists and turns of the areas path from forest to city  ending in the twenty-first century with the Audubon name re-purposed in todays historic district  a multiethnic  multi-racial urban neighborhood far removed from the homogeneous  Eurocentric Audubon Park suburb.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44987629240373,"sku":"ByrdShop_0823289427","price":55.09,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780823289424.jpg?v=1770949869","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-neighborhood-manhattan-forgot-audubon-park-and-the-families-who-shaped-it","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}