'Greater Gotham' traces New York's transformation into capital of the Western world
Mike Wallace, the author of 1998's Pulitzer Prize-winning "Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898" (co-authored with Edwin Burrows)at one point in his bracingly readable sequel, quotes an 1856 issue of Harper's Monthly in which an aggravated writer scorns the very idea that New York City might ever be a beloved place. “Why should it be loved as a city?” the writer asks. “It is never the same city for a dozen years together. A man born in
