Catherine McNeur is Associate Professor of History at Portland State University.
Tells an odd story in lively prose. This book implicitly alludes to
the urban revival now stretching from Portland, Ore., to Portland,
Me., but whatever your thoughts on brewpubs and bike lanes, you
probably haven't read a municipal history that has a mayor 'ready
to tackle the hog problem.' ...The city McNeur depicts in Taming
Manhattan is the pestiferous obverse of the belle epoque city of
Henry James and Edith Wharton that sits comfortably in many
imaginations. McNeur's town is a 'veritable manure factory' in
which some 10,000 horses each deposit up to 40 pounds of manure a
day, while the East River serves as a repository for human waste...
[Taming Manhattan] is a smart book that engages in the
old-fashioned business of trying to harvest lessons for the present
from the past.-- (12/03/2014)
In the decades before the Civil War, New York was rapidly becoming
the largest and most important city in the western hemisphere. But
mad dogs and wild pigs roamed its streets; garbage heaps,
squatters, and shantytowns were commonplace; parks and public open
spaces were practically non-existent; and epidemic disease was a
constant threat. Catherine McNeur's Taming Manhattan tells us how
New York was literally cleaned up and transformed from a health
hazard to an emerging world city. And she does it with beautiful
prose, careful research, and persuasive argument. Altogether an
excellent book.--Kenneth T. Jackson, editor of The Encyclopedia of
New York City
Nearly two centuries before the Occupy Movement, New Yorkers rich
and poor clashed over what shape their young city should take. In
this superb history, McNeur recovers the bitter battles over feral
hogs and untamed dogs, public parks, safe and pure food, effective
sanitation, and the fate of the underclass. Making a safer and
cleaner city for some, she concludes, also created a shadow city of
poverty and filth for others. Taming Manhattan is a thrilling,
vivid expedition into Gotham's wild and often violent
past.--Matthew Klingle, author of Emerald City
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