Chronicles of Old Paris
Exploring the Historic City of Light
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- $19.99
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
Discover one of the world's most fascinating and beautiful cities through 30 dramatic true stories spanning the rich history of <!--?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /-->Paris. John Baxter takes readers through 2,000 years of French history with tales of the kings, queens, saints, and sinners who shaped the city. Essays explore the major historic events from the martyrdom of Saint Denis near today's Abbesses Métro station to the epic romances of Heloise and Abelard, Josephine and Napoleon, and George Sand and Frédéric Chopin. Learn about the labyrinth of catacombs snaking under all of Paris and the artists who called the seedy Montmartre home in the 19th century. Then see it all for yourself with guided walking tours of each of Paris's historic neighborhoods, illustrated with color photographs and period maps.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Can a 260-page book do justice to Harlem, Turtle Bay, SoHo, Greenwich Village, and other landmark Manhattan hoods, both extant and long-gone? No. And yes. Roman, a real-estate broker and third-generation New Yorker, covers ground familiar to most locals, and maybe others: SoHo has the most cast-iron buildings in the world; Chinatown was populated by men because women weren t allowed to emigrate; the Dakota was the city s first high-end apartment building. Fortunately, the author peppers his effort with less familiar factoids as well: NYU s first building was built by Sing Sing prisoners; Congress exempted John D. Rockefeller, Jr. from gift taxes to facilitate the donation of land that the UN was built on. Though accounts can be cursory (the Lower East Side gets four pages), and the author sometimes announces the obvious ( America was thrilled when World War II ended ), the book includes walking tours and a guide to townhouse architecture, and packs a good bit of history into one handy source. It s not for the specialist, but New Yorkers will learn a few new things, and history-minded tourists will find it a useful addition to their other guidebooks.
