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    Unavailable
    Downtown: My Manhattan
    Unavailable
    Downtown: My Manhattan
    Unavailable
    Downtown: My Manhattan
    Audiobook (abridged)6 hours

    Downtown: My Manhattan

    Published by Hachette Audio

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    In Downtown, Hamill leads us on an unforgettable journey through the city he loves, from the island's southern tip to 42nd Street, combining a moving memoir of his days and nights in New York with a passionate history of its most enduring places and people. From the Battery's traces of the early port to Washington Square's ghosts of executed convicts and well-heeled Knickerbockers; from the Five Points, once the most dangerous and squalid slum in America, to the mansions of the robber barons on "the Fifth Avenue"; from the Bowery of the 1860s, the vibrant heart of the city's theater world, to the Village of the 1960s, with its festival-like street life, this is downtown as we've never seen it before. Hamill weaves his own memories of Manhattan with the liveliest moments from its past, and points out the hints of that past living on in the city of today, fueling the ever-present nostalgia of its inhabitants.Hamill introduces us to the New Yorkers who have left indelible marks: Peter Stuyvesant and John Jacob Astor, Stanford White and George Templeton Strong, Edith Wharton and Henry James, Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, W. H. Auden and Allen Ginsberg, Boss Tweed and Fiorello La Guardia, Jimi Hendrix and Thelonious Monk, and scores of others. And he takes us to the eateries, saloons, theaters, movie houses, bookstores, and street corners they, and he, once frequented, whether still standing or existing only in memory.

    Through the city's transformations, the pulse of Pete Hamill's brilliant voice melds with the pulse that drives New York, that mixture of daring, greed, anger, rebellion, hope, entrepreneurialism, and longing that never fades. Written by native son who has lived through some of New York City's most historic moments, Downtown is an extraordinary celebration of the magnificent, haunted place that Hamill continues to call home, and that people from all over the country and the world have come to call their own.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHachette Audio
    Release dateApr 1, 2005
    ISBN9781594831355
    Unavailable
    Downtown: My Manhattan

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    Reviews for Downtown

    4/5

    95 ratings9 reviews

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    • 3/5
      An ok overview ....but i was hoping for more history, especially related to to the most recent decades. It turned into excessive name-dropping rather than a true study of New York. overall, just ok!
    • 4/5
      Hamill lived almost his entire adult life south of 14th Street in NYC and that's what he writes about . . . the past through the WTC bombings. Having lived and trolled in the same part of NYC for 7 years in the 70's I was very interested in reading the book and it didn't disappoint. Hamill honestly covers the good times and the bad but his overwhelming love for the city and it's people resounds.
    • 5/5
      I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I have always been fascinated with the history of New York City, so I was excited to read this book and it did not disappoint. A native New Yorker, Hamill takes us on a personal tour of the city he has lived his life in. Hamill gives us a in depth history of the downtown area of Manhattan starting with the Dutch and working his way up to current times. George Washington to Allen Ginsberg and everyone in between the author fills us in on the roles of the movers,shakers and famous passerby's of the city. Hamill provides a lot of history without dragging it out.
    • 3/5
      well written, highly personal, compelling
    • 4/5
      Pete Hamill is one of my favorite writers because whether he's writing fiction or nonfiction, everything he writes is so richly textured with details, you feel as if you were there with him or his characters. His love for New York City is palpable in this book, something that has defined him as much as his work on newspapers or his Irish heritage (both of which he discusses in this work).I found his discussion of Union Square in the aftermath of 9/11 particularly poignant and his accounts of that day, with his sadness and fear, resonate as we continue to rebuild his and our beloved city
    • 5/5
      lyrical love song to New York. Makes me want to go home again.
    • 5/5
      Great stories of New York City, but also a story about nostalgia and being American.
    • 5/5
      The writing and storytelling are world class, and the reading by the author is especially resonant for a book so often a memoir. The segments on Union Square and Tompkins Park are marvels, emotionally and as feats of prose prowess. Only Mr Hamill’s “A Drinking Life” may outshine “Downtown”, to my eye.
    • 3/5
      This is a tough one. I liked the book while recognizing it truly is a bit of a mishmash of memoir, history, travel guide, and whatever else Hamill felt like including. I think I liked it mostly because I love New York. He does spend time noting notable buildings, as it were, and there is plenty about the role and importance of immigrants in the life of the great city. He must have been psychic regarding the need for that one. I am reluctant to totally recommend it because in parts I just wanted to get to the end, but at the end I was glad I read it.