Twenty Minutes in Manhattan - by Michael Sorkin (Paperback)

About the Book

""This is the most brilliant epitome of Manhattan ever written." --Mike Davis Every morning, the architect and writer Michael Sorkin walks from his apartment in Greenwich Village to his office in Tribeca. Unlike most commuters, Sorkin isn't in a hurry, and he doesn't try to drown out his surroundings. Instead, he's always paying attention. As he descends the narrow stairs of his town house, Sorkin explains why New York doesn't have the grand stairwells so common in European apartment buildings. Stepping out onto his block, he imagines a better, more efficient, far less dirty way to dispose of garbage. As he crosses Canal Street, he remembers the mad proposals for tunnels, elevated highways, and mega-structures that threatened lower Manhattan and could have destroyed its urban fabric. Fifty years after Jane Jacobs's groundbreaking The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Sorkin's vision of city life is every bit as perceptive and fine-grained as that of Jacobs's classic. With important insights into history, architecture, and public policy, Twenty Minutes in Manhattan is an extraordinary, deeply personal look at a city undergoing--always undergoing--dramatic transformations"--

Book Synopsis

Every morning, the architect and writer Michael Sorkin walks downtown from his Greenwich Village apartment through Washington Square to his Tribeca office. Sorkin isn't in a hurry, and he never ignores his surroundings. Instead, he pays careful, close attention. And in Twenty Minutes in Manhattan, he explains what he sees, what he imagines, what he knows--giving us extraordinary access to the layers of history, the feats of engineering and artistry, and the intense social drama that take place along a simple twenty-minute walk.

Review Quotes

"This walk through the city shows Michael Sorkin at his witty and knowledgeable best. [Twenty Minutes in Manhattan] takes us on a journey through eras and worlds in the space of just fifteen blocks." --Sharon Zukin, author of Naked City

"[Michael Sorkin] turns his walk from his apartment in Greenwich Village to his studio into an erudite but utterly engaging reverie on the nature of cities." --Paul Goldberger, The New Yorker

"This book captures architect Sorkin wandering through lower Manhattan, where even the most banal-seeming sights send the author into casually fascinating digressions about urban planning, the history behind New York's grid, stoops and parks. After looking at the city through this ambler's eyes, you'll never look at a tenement building--or a stairwell--the same way again." --Michael Miller, Time Out New York

"Should inspire anyone who cares about the future of cities." --The Philadelphia Inquirer

"With this book Michael Sorkin secures his claim to succeed Jane Jacobs . . . [He] brings to bear an eye every bit as acute, a pen nearly as trenchant, and a political understanding perhaps a little bit more sophisticated of the never-ending struggle over New York's neighbourhoods." --D. D. Guttenplan, The Times Literary Supplement

"I am glad Sorkin doesn't take the subway: this is the most brilliant epitome of Manhattan ever written." --Mike Davis, author of City of Quartz and Planet of Slums

About the Author

Michael Sorkin is an architect and urban planner, and the author and editor of many books, including All Over the Map, Against the Wall, Exquisite Corpse, and Variations on a Theme Park (Hill and Wang, 1992). He lives in New York City.