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The Gods of New York: Egotists, Idealists, Opportunists, and the Birth of the Modern City, 1986-1990
A sweeping chronicle of four years in 1980s New York, a crucible that would transform the city and leave it more divided than ever—a rollicking, real-life Bonfire of the Vanities featuring larger-than-life personalities of Donald Trump, Spike Lee, Ed Koch, Al Sharpton, Rudy Giuliani, and countless others
New York City entered 1986 as a city reborn, with record profits on Wall Street sending waves of money splashing across Manhattan and bringing a once-bankrupt, reeling city back to life.
But it also entered 1986 as a city divided. Nearly one-third of the city’s Black and Hispanic residents were living below the federal poverty line. Thousands of New Yorkers were sleeping in the streets—and in many cases addicted to drugs, dying of AIDS, or suffering from mental illness. The manufacturing jobs that had once sustained a thriving middle class had vanished. Long-simmering racial tensions threatened to boil over.
Over the next four years, a singular confluence of events—involving a cast of outsized, unforgettable characters—would widen those divisions into chasms. Ed Koch. Donald Trump. Al Sharpton. The Central Park Five. Spike Lee. Rudy Giuliani. Howard Beach. Tawana Brawley. The Preppy Murder. Jimmy Breslin. Do the Right Thing, Wall Street, crack, the AIDS epidemic, and, of course, ready to pour gasoline on every fire—the tabloids. In The Gods of New York, Jonathan Mahler tells the story of these convulsive, defining years.
The Gods of New York is an exuberant, kaleidoscopic, and deeply immersive portrait of a city in transformation, one whose long-held identity was suddenly up for Could it be both the great working-class city, lifting up immigrants from around the world and the money-soaked capital of global finance? Could it retain a civic culture—a common idea of what it meant to be a New Yorker—when the rich were building a city of their own and vast swaths of its citizens were losing faith in the very systems intended to protect them? New York City was one thing at the dawn of 1986; it would be something very different as 1989 came to a close. This book is the story of how that happened.
New York City entered 1986 as a city reborn, with record profits on Wall Street sending waves of money splashing across Manhattan and bringing a once-bankrupt, reeling city back to life.
But it also entered 1986 as a city divided. Nearly one-third of the city’s Black and Hispanic residents were living below the federal poverty line. Thousands of New Yorkers were sleeping in the streets—and in many cases addicted to drugs, dying of AIDS, or suffering from mental illness. The manufacturing jobs that had once sustained a thriving middle class had vanished. Long-simmering racial tensions threatened to boil over.
Over the next four years, a singular confluence of events—involving a cast of outsized, unforgettable characters—would widen those divisions into chasms. Ed Koch. Donald Trump. Al Sharpton. The Central Park Five. Spike Lee. Rudy Giuliani. Howard Beach. Tawana Brawley. The Preppy Murder. Jimmy Breslin. Do the Right Thing, Wall Street, crack, the AIDS epidemic, and, of course, ready to pour gasoline on every fire—the tabloids. In The Gods of New York, Jonathan Mahler tells the story of these convulsive, defining years.
The Gods of New York is an exuberant, kaleidoscopic, and deeply immersive portrait of a city in transformation, one whose long-held identity was suddenly up for Could it be both the great working-class city, lifting up immigrants from around the world and the money-soaked capital of global finance? Could it retain a civic culture—a common idea of what it meant to be a New Yorker—when the rich were building a city of their own and vast swaths of its citizens were losing faith in the very systems intended to protect them? New York City was one thing at the dawn of 1986; it would be something very different as 1989 came to a close. This book is the story of how that happened.
451 pages, Hardcover
Published August 12, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 180 reviews
August 24, 2025
I know it is crazy to say that a 460 page book is "fast paced" but this history of NYC from 1986-1990 was totally that. It is juicy, gossipy, salacious, and full of the heavy hitters of NYC past, many of whom are still at it today (Trump, Spike Lee, Giuliani, Al Sharpton). I loved this one. It might not be the best book ever but I had a total blast with it. The tone was spot on and felt like a 1980's tabloid. I loved that it was chronological and tackled the whiplash of the news. I loved that he left the reader room to connect the dots. I also now have a list of at least 5 books that tackle moments in this book head on. This was fave of the year even if I don't think it is the "best" book of the year.
September 2, 2025
Oh, this one is very difficult to rate. Johnathan Mahler decided to write the Gods of New York, a book which ticked every box on my childhood checklist of "major news stories I heard about as a suburban kid who grew up just outside of New York City in the late 80s." The question I kept asking myself is whether the book would be good for someone who didn't grow up around these cases and who wouldn't have a frame of reference for much of this.
From a writing perspective, Mahler is very talented, and it is obvious from the first page. This book clocks in at a tad over 400 pages, but it read easier and faster than most sub-300 page narratives. His characters are vivid and he is quite good at doing a lot with a little.
The content is where some issues do arise. There are three major pillars of the book. The AIDS epidemic, crime/race relations, and Donald Trump. When discussing 1986-1990 in the city, all of these are candidates for a deep dive. However, I couldn't help but feel the AIDS epidemic gets short shrift while Trump could have been a minor player just mentioned a couple of times like some other people. The majority of the book covers crime and race relations. These parts are quite excellent (with the caveat that the author goes too easy on Al Sharpton, but that may just be me). The AIDS epidemic makes sense to include because it was such a big deal, and the gay community used many of the same tactics as racial justice organizers. I would have liked more depth on that movement.
Trump feels shoehorned in. Yes, he was a major player in the city at the time, but ultimately, he is tangential to everything else in the book and even his short sections often have more to do with Atlantic City than New York City. Yes, he is supposed to be a stand-in for many real estate and Wall Street moguls, but there are already cases tried by Rudy Giuliani for that perspective. This is not the first book lately which seems to add Trump for attention rather than because he is vital to the story being told.
In the end, I went ahead and rated this one based on how much I enjoyed it. I may be wearing my nostalgia glasses, but my criticisms didn't stop me from reading and enjoying this immensely. A must read for anyone in NYC's orbit in the late 80s. (Just writing that makes me feel so old....)
(This book was provided as a review copy by Random House.)
From a writing perspective, Mahler is very talented, and it is obvious from the first page. This book clocks in at a tad over 400 pages, but it read easier and faster than most sub-300 page narratives. His characters are vivid and he is quite good at doing a lot with a little.
The content is where some issues do arise. There are three major pillars of the book. The AIDS epidemic, crime/race relations, and Donald Trump. When discussing 1986-1990 in the city, all of these are candidates for a deep dive. However, I couldn't help but feel the AIDS epidemic gets short shrift while Trump could have been a minor player just mentioned a couple of times like some other people. The majority of the book covers crime and race relations. These parts are quite excellent (with the caveat that the author goes too easy on Al Sharpton, but that may just be me). The AIDS epidemic makes sense to include because it was such a big deal, and the gay community used many of the same tactics as racial justice organizers. I would have liked more depth on that movement.
Trump feels shoehorned in. Yes, he was a major player in the city at the time, but ultimately, he is tangential to everything else in the book and even his short sections often have more to do with Atlantic City than New York City. Yes, he is supposed to be a stand-in for many real estate and Wall Street moguls, but there are already cases tried by Rudy Giuliani for that perspective. This is not the first book lately which seems to add Trump for attention rather than because he is vital to the story being told.
In the end, I went ahead and rated this one based on how much I enjoyed it. I may be wearing my nostalgia glasses, but my criticisms didn't stop me from reading and enjoying this immensely. A must read for anyone in NYC's orbit in the late 80s. (Just writing that makes me feel so old....)
(This book was provided as a review copy by Random House.)
September 1, 2025
This book describes four years in New York City during the 1980s. They were turbulent years. There were several instances in which black men were killed by mobs, a young girl was strangled by a friend in the park (and he blamed it on her), Rudy Giuliani perp-walked every one he could to feed his ambition, Donald Trump restored a skating rink and bombed in Atlantic City, the police rioted in a park, the city had a mayor who planned to stay forever and a frightening disease was killing gay men.
I lived in New York during the period depicted in this book. I remember all of the events described, and even knew a couple of the people mentioned. This book brought back memories for me. However, I am not sure this book is for a general audience. Certainly these events made the news in New York, but I don’t know that they resonated in the rest of the country. Yes, Trump and Giuliani are described (and they were as despicable back then as they remain) but they weren’t on the national scene.
The writing is somewhat breathless and chaotic, but events are described as I remember them. In the middle of the discussion of an insider trading case, the author suddenly switches to the AIDs pandemic. This sort of shift occurs constantly. It’s true that all of this mess was happening at the same time, but the choppy way in which it is described may make it difficult to follow, particularly if you didn’t live through it. I enjoyed the book, and if you want to read about some really big personalities and a glimpse of a complicated city during some hard times, I recommend it.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
I lived in New York during the period depicted in this book. I remember all of the events described, and even knew a couple of the people mentioned. This book brought back memories for me. However, I am not sure this book is for a general audience. Certainly these events made the news in New York, but I don’t know that they resonated in the rest of the country. Yes, Trump and Giuliani are described (and they were as despicable back then as they remain) but they weren’t on the national scene.
The writing is somewhat breathless and chaotic, but events are described as I remember them. In the middle of the discussion of an insider trading case, the author suddenly switches to the AIDs pandemic. This sort of shift occurs constantly. It’s true that all of this mess was happening at the same time, but the choppy way in which it is described may make it difficult to follow, particularly if you didn’t live through it. I enjoyed the book, and if you want to read about some really big personalities and a glimpse of a complicated city during some hard times, I recommend it.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
August 16, 2025
The Gods of New York covers an era during which I spent little time in the City, during a time in which I was getting settled on the West Coast. However, having had a history with the City in the past, I kept up with current events, so was familiar with the stories Mahler has chosen to illuminate the forces at work. Focusing on the sensationalism of Bernard Goetz, Tawana Brawley, the ascendency of Spike Lee, the mayorship of Ed Koch and his attempts to remain in the closet, far too much of Donald Trump and his shenanigans, malfeasance by the NYPD especially regarding race issues. The impending death of middle class opportunity. As a reporter for New York Magazine, he writes in a journalistic, punchy style that propels and holds interest.,
September 14, 2025
The years covered In The Gods of New York were certainly tumultuous and there were interesting subjects: race, mayoral races, a who's who of personalities: Giuliani, Trump, Koch, Spike Lee etc.
But the Author just pounds and pounds the same thing over and over it gets nauseately redundant.
One thing I admired in the book was the Authors honestly, overabundant descriptive assessment of Reverend Al Sharpton as the ass- clown he truly is.
But the Author just pounds and pounds the same thing over and over it gets nauseately redundant.
One thing I admired in the book was the Authors honestly, overabundant descriptive assessment of Reverend Al Sharpton as the ass- clown he truly is.
December 27, 2025
i love ya new york
November 9, 2025
Tbh I could just read books about the history NYC for the rest of my life, and be pretty happy. It has everything.
Also, fun reading this during the 2025 mayoral race as Sliwa, Cuomo, Trump are all featured in this (spoiler… they’re all terrible!)
Also, fun reading this during the 2025 mayoral race as Sliwa, Cuomo, Trump are all featured in this (spoiler… they’re all terrible!)
January 10, 2026
Jonathan Mahler is meant to be our great chronicler of NYC history in recent memory. And I truly hope he's at work on a book tackling New York life in the 1990s. Yes, folks, he is THAT essential and he DOES match the brilliance of LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE BRONX IS BURNING -- combining rigorous reporting with a gripping momentum that caused me to wolf down the last 150 pages in an obsessive frenzy and issuing an apologetic text to the lovely lady I'm now seeing for my three hour delay in replying. (Thankfully, she was very understanding.) In addition to skillfully balancing the fall of Ed Koch and the rise of David Dinkins, Mahler has a really gift for documenting the troublemakers and the fighters -- particularly Larry Kramer, Al Sharpton, Spike Lee, and, at times, Jimmy Breslin. Their personalities rise to the surface in a way in which their very behavior makes them interesting and they are never outright condemned by Mahler (as other less skilled "journalists" will do). Mahler is also extremely respectful of previous work done about this era. I had read Jack Newfield and Wayne Barrett's CITY FOR SALE (which covers much of the Donald Manes affair) and I was greatly impressed with the way that Mahler found his own way in and really did careful work to ensure that he had approached the subject with original reporting while citing and honoring the work done in the previous volume.
It appears that we have to wait twenty years for a new Mahler book of this type. But he's so methodical and so careful to style such an entertaining and amazingly inclusive portrait of the city that it is always worth the wait.
It appears that we have to wait twenty years for a new Mahler book of this type. But he's so methodical and so careful to style such an entertaining and amazingly inclusive portrait of the city that it is always worth the wait.
May 29, 2025
Thanks to NetGalley and Random House (Will) for the ARC of the book.
A while back I read Stephen Fry’s Mythos, his retelling of the ancient Greek myths. I was not very familiar with the stories of Zeus, Hera, Ares, Aphrodite, et al, but the book was very entertaining. The gods all came off as being incredibly petty, jealous, thin-skinned, vain, vengeful, etc. Pretty horrible traits when coupled with god powers and quick tempers.
I couldn’t help but think of the Greek gods as I read Jonathan Mahler’s The Gods of New York. Ed Koch, Donald Trump, Al Sharpton, Rudy Giuliani, and a host of other individuals just slamming against one another in New York City in the late 1980s, each with their own agenda and enough power to almost make it happen. Like the Greek gods, they each have their domain while also trying to expand their power into other areas. They see their viewpoint as the only one that makes sense, and though they claim to do things for the people of the city, their actions almost always seem to have self-serving ends. The city is plagued with racial tensions, the AIDS epidemic, unemployment, the homeless issue, the collapse of the financial sector, government corruption; the list of problems goes on and on, and no one in a position to do something seems capable of doing anything. The powers that be battle it out in the newspapers and on television and radio while the citizens of New York City watch and pick sides. Mahler does an excellent job reporting what the city went through in those years; even though the events took place decades ago, his writing makes it feel like you’re in the moment.
Despite covering four years filled with many events and what feels like dozens of individuals, Mahler’s writing is clear and propulsive. You never lose the different threads of the stories he writes, and the book is really a page turner. I found myself regularly saying, “Okay, just one more page.” I don’t regularly read non-fiction, but The Gods of New York was a very enjoyable read.
A while back I read Stephen Fry’s Mythos, his retelling of the ancient Greek myths. I was not very familiar with the stories of Zeus, Hera, Ares, Aphrodite, et al, but the book was very entertaining. The gods all came off as being incredibly petty, jealous, thin-skinned, vain, vengeful, etc. Pretty horrible traits when coupled with god powers and quick tempers.
I couldn’t help but think of the Greek gods as I read Jonathan Mahler’s The Gods of New York. Ed Koch, Donald Trump, Al Sharpton, Rudy Giuliani, and a host of other individuals just slamming against one another in New York City in the late 1980s, each with their own agenda and enough power to almost make it happen. Like the Greek gods, they each have their domain while also trying to expand their power into other areas. They see their viewpoint as the only one that makes sense, and though they claim to do things for the people of the city, their actions almost always seem to have self-serving ends. The city is plagued with racial tensions, the AIDS epidemic, unemployment, the homeless issue, the collapse of the financial sector, government corruption; the list of problems goes on and on, and no one in a position to do something seems capable of doing anything. The powers that be battle it out in the newspapers and on television and radio while the citizens of New York City watch and pick sides. Mahler does an excellent job reporting what the city went through in those years; even though the events took place decades ago, his writing makes it feel like you’re in the moment.
Despite covering four years filled with many events and what feels like dozens of individuals, Mahler’s writing is clear and propulsive. You never lose the different threads of the stories he writes, and the book is really a page turner. I found myself regularly saying, “Okay, just one more page.” I don’t regularly read non-fiction, but The Gods of New York was a very enjoyable read.
October 14, 2025
more like the FRAUDS of New York amirite
Al Sharpton state snitch redux when
Al Sharpton state snitch redux when
September 9, 2025
Learned so many things, like that Ed Koch had 65 lbs of cheese at his 3rd inaugural address celebration!
December 3, 2025
4.5 / 5 stars, rounding up
August 12, 2025
This book is an intense look at the history of New York City from 1986-1990, focusing on several outsized personalities including Ed Koch, Al Sharpton, Rudy Giuliani, Spike Lee, Chuck D, Jessie Jackson, Donald Trump, David Dinkins, and Ben Ward. It encompasses several mayoral races, the Central Park 5, Howard Beach, the movie Do The Right Thing, racial conflicts, violence, homelessness, the AIDS crisis and growing economic inequality across the city.
The book moves quite quickly and stays engaging throughout which is wonderful. It does switch from story to story every couple pages with only a paragraph break. While it helps keep the story fresh and moving along, I would have loved sections to be a bit longer and the be demarcated with some sort of page break or type mark showing separation (I kept finding myself checking back and forth to figure out what story was being discussed and it got annoying over time).
Overall a very fun read if you enjoy urban history, city development, politics, or NYC in general! Thanks to NetGalley, Random House Publishing, and the author for the ARC!
The book moves quite quickly and stays engaging throughout which is wonderful. It does switch from story to story every couple pages with only a paragraph break. While it helps keep the story fresh and moving along, I would have loved sections to be a bit longer and the be demarcated with some sort of page break or type mark showing separation (I kept finding myself checking back and forth to figure out what story was being discussed and it got annoying over time).
Overall a very fun read if you enjoy urban history, city development, politics, or NYC in general! Thanks to NetGalley, Random House Publishing, and the author for the ARC!
January 1, 2026
The writer of the book The Bronx is Burning about the disaster of late 1970s/early 1980s New York City returns with what to me was the best book I read in 2025, focusing on New York City from 1986-1990. This is long enough ago that younger people may be unaware of what went on; for folks in their 50s like me it brought back memories of when I first became politically aware (and am now 35+ years into a career in municipal government!) and very timely because many of the people running the federal government today, most significantly now two term President Donald Trump, first broke into the national scene.
This book though more than anything is a tragic history of the downfall of one of New York City's greatest mayors: Ed Koch, who almost single-handedly brought New York City back from its desperate financial and administrative crash of the 1970s, yet who stayed in office too long and was unable to change with the times and ended his career being booted out of office in a primary election.
What happened? Ed Koch was a closet homosexual in the days before it was okay to be "out" and when the 1980s AIDS epidemic broke out, ravaging the city's gay population, he was unable to lead an effective response because of his concerns his own sexuality would emerge and cause a scandal. I thought this was particularly tragic because in the late 1980s when I was in high school, Ed Koch was famous and just about everyone already suspected he was in fact gay and no one seemed to care other than maybe the media. The other issue is unlike say COVID, AIDS was a totally preventable disease--don't engage in unprotected sex or share needles if using illegal drugs--and you pretty much would avoid it. I remember as a teenager having how to avoid AIDS drilled into my head again and again. Back then and even now, I have somewhat limited sympathy for people who deliberately and repeatedly engaged in risky behavior that exposed them to a deadly disease and then when they got it expected the government--taxpayers--to pay for their care.
Ed Koch also then faced a series of incidents that inflamed black/white racial tensions in the city. In several instances such as the Howard Beach incident, the Bernie Goetz subway shooting, and a few others, it seemed black youths were hunted and killed simply for being black and the NYPD didn't really investigate the cases so well and often lost the trust of the black community. At the same time, you see emerging figures such as Al Sharpton, who often inflamed situations and twisted them to promote their own personal political agendas even if meant not obtaining justice for the actual victims. Most infamously Sharpton endlessly pushed the fake allegations of Tawana Brawley who lied in saying she was kidnapped and abused. Some of the stories about Sharpton related in this book will turn the stomach of anyone. But anti-crime, pro-police Ed Koch (who actually did criticize his police on some of these matters such as the Howard Beach incident) just lost the support of the black community.
Then there was the transformation of the city's economic base. Big financiers and real estate developers pushed the city's 1980s economic revival and growth completely transforming the city's power base. Enter Donald Trump. Sadly today the city has become dominated by woke liberals who turned on Trump but in the 1980s he was a city hero, redeveloping old hotels (even being featured for that work in an episode of "This Old House" on PBS), building Trump Tower and pushing huge dramatic schemes to re-envision the city while also trying to revive long failing Atlantic City in New Jersey. Koch just seemed befuddled.
And like many elected executives in office for a long time, Koch began to suffer from a serious of embarrassing ethical and misconduct affairs among a number of his key staffers. In the end, this all conspired to his ignominious primary election defeat in 1989.
The main problem I have with this book is the author is quietly but clearly liberal and anti-Trump. He continually portrays Trump in the most negative ways and incredibly, even in the book's final pages, never even once mentions the man went on to twice be elected President of the United States. Even when Trump takes over a city project to rebuild a public ice skating rink that was long delayed and way over budget and quickly fixes all the problems and completes it the author goes out of his way to portray Trump negatively. While the focus of the book is on the final years of Ed Koch, the author also at the end only lightly glosses over the reality of the total disastrous failure of the mayoralty of David Dinkins. Dinkins quickly alienated the city police department; there was a riot in Crown Heights where it was perceived he supported blacks over Jews, the national economy under President George H. W. Bush went into recession harming the city's economy (Bush would also be defeated on this issue by Bill Clinton who pledged to revive the economy). Reality is Dinkins was a disaster as mayor and it led to the Republican domination of the mayor's office for the next two decades by Rudy Guiliani and Mike Bloomberg. The author lightly glides over all this at the end of the book; if he was going to discuss it he should have done so in the gory detail any examination of Dinkins' term deserves.
Despite the book's rather biased treatment of Mr. Trump, this is a fine account of the politics of New York City in the late 1980s and provides great insight into some of the figures now running our country who emerged onto the national scene during that time.
This book though more than anything is a tragic history of the downfall of one of New York City's greatest mayors: Ed Koch, who almost single-handedly brought New York City back from its desperate financial and administrative crash of the 1970s, yet who stayed in office too long and was unable to change with the times and ended his career being booted out of office in a primary election.
What happened? Ed Koch was a closet homosexual in the days before it was okay to be "out" and when the 1980s AIDS epidemic broke out, ravaging the city's gay population, he was unable to lead an effective response because of his concerns his own sexuality would emerge and cause a scandal. I thought this was particularly tragic because in the late 1980s when I was in high school, Ed Koch was famous and just about everyone already suspected he was in fact gay and no one seemed to care other than maybe the media. The other issue is unlike say COVID, AIDS was a totally preventable disease--don't engage in unprotected sex or share needles if using illegal drugs--and you pretty much would avoid it. I remember as a teenager having how to avoid AIDS drilled into my head again and again. Back then and even now, I have somewhat limited sympathy for people who deliberately and repeatedly engaged in risky behavior that exposed them to a deadly disease and then when they got it expected the government--taxpayers--to pay for their care.
Ed Koch also then faced a series of incidents that inflamed black/white racial tensions in the city. In several instances such as the Howard Beach incident, the Bernie Goetz subway shooting, and a few others, it seemed black youths were hunted and killed simply for being black and the NYPD didn't really investigate the cases so well and often lost the trust of the black community. At the same time, you see emerging figures such as Al Sharpton, who often inflamed situations and twisted them to promote their own personal political agendas even if meant not obtaining justice for the actual victims. Most infamously Sharpton endlessly pushed the fake allegations of Tawana Brawley who lied in saying she was kidnapped and abused. Some of the stories about Sharpton related in this book will turn the stomach of anyone. But anti-crime, pro-police Ed Koch (who actually did criticize his police on some of these matters such as the Howard Beach incident) just lost the support of the black community.
Then there was the transformation of the city's economic base. Big financiers and real estate developers pushed the city's 1980s economic revival and growth completely transforming the city's power base. Enter Donald Trump. Sadly today the city has become dominated by woke liberals who turned on Trump but in the 1980s he was a city hero, redeveloping old hotels (even being featured for that work in an episode of "This Old House" on PBS), building Trump Tower and pushing huge dramatic schemes to re-envision the city while also trying to revive long failing Atlantic City in New Jersey. Koch just seemed befuddled.
And like many elected executives in office for a long time, Koch began to suffer from a serious of embarrassing ethical and misconduct affairs among a number of his key staffers. In the end, this all conspired to his ignominious primary election defeat in 1989.
The main problem I have with this book is the author is quietly but clearly liberal and anti-Trump. He continually portrays Trump in the most negative ways and incredibly, even in the book's final pages, never even once mentions the man went on to twice be elected President of the United States. Even when Trump takes over a city project to rebuild a public ice skating rink that was long delayed and way over budget and quickly fixes all the problems and completes it the author goes out of his way to portray Trump negatively. While the focus of the book is on the final years of Ed Koch, the author also at the end only lightly glosses over the reality of the total disastrous failure of the mayoralty of David Dinkins. Dinkins quickly alienated the city police department; there was a riot in Crown Heights where it was perceived he supported blacks over Jews, the national economy under President George H. W. Bush went into recession harming the city's economy (Bush would also be defeated on this issue by Bill Clinton who pledged to revive the economy). Reality is Dinkins was a disaster as mayor and it led to the Republican domination of the mayor's office for the next two decades by Rudy Guiliani and Mike Bloomberg. The author lightly glides over all this at the end of the book; if he was going to discuss it he should have done so in the gory detail any examination of Dinkins' term deserves.
Despite the book's rather biased treatment of Mr. Trump, this is a fine account of the politics of New York City in the late 1980s and provides great insight into some of the figures now running our country who emerged onto the national scene during that time.
January 13, 2026
Insane how Mahler manages to weave together so many different strands of 1980s New York to create such an important big picture. He puts Rudy Giuliani, Ed Koch, Trump, Rev. Al, Larry Kramer and Spike Lee in a shared context that makes so much sense and holds so much relevance now. Reads kind of like a fast-paced HBO series where all the separate story lines eventually come together. ALSO the first book I've read that treats AIDS as a mainstream political issue interspersed throughout, rather than locking it in one single queer chapter. big whoop
December 29, 2025
A beast of a book, but one of the best non-fiction books I have read in years. Thorough and completely absorbing.
January 2, 2026
A spectacular read. Mahler’s writing style is incredibly engaging. Some of the most memorable people & events to me: Al Sharpton, the Tawana Brawley hoax, the Howard Beach trial, and the Preppy Murder trial. Mahler also discusses Trump a fair amount. He was effectively the same person he is now.
I also appreciated learning about the historical significance of neighborhoods across the boroughs, many of which served as breeding grounds for activism, protests, and riots.
I also appreciated learning about the historical significance of neighborhoods across the boroughs, many of which served as breeding grounds for activism, protests, and riots.
January 4, 2026
Quick and fast-paced, but too often shallow and almost like a recitation of tabloid coverage for four years of the city. Enjoyed it, but I would only recommend it for people who really want to learn about NYC in the late 80s.
November 10, 2025
Really excellent retelling of a critical period in NYC history… i remembered (and learned) so much from this
May 15, 2025
Jonathan Mahler's "The Gods of New York" is a compelling look into New York City and the 1980'2. Two characters loom large throughout the narrative, Ed Koch and Donald Tr*mp. The legacies of both men permeate New York today. Detail-rich without slowing down the pace of the book. Mahler has made it a bit of a page-turner. It's a hard book to put down. It also makes you want to turn back time and make people see that the Tr*mp who is leading us to destruction today from the White House was the same person in the 1980's as he tried to have his wy in New York. Why don't we learn? "The Gods of New York" is a sold, enjoyable read.. Many thanks to #netgalley and #randomhouse for the chance to preview this book.
November 13, 2025
Another continuation in my Harlem reading era, one could say!!! More directly, The Gods of New York: Egotists, Idealists, Opportunists, and the Birth of the Modern City, 1986-1990 continues my New York history reading era. Jonathan Mahler’s work picks right up where Kim Phillips-Fein left off in Fear City: New York's Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics left off, which of course picked up where Robert A. Caro’s The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York left off. Mahler’s New York is the result of the austerity budgets that were forced upon New York after its 1975 fiscal crisis, along with a number of other important shifts in the city.
As Phillips-Fein notes, it wasn’t even conceivable to deprive the city of so many public services until the flight of white New Yorkers was outpaced by the entry of Black and Puerto Rican migrants, along with other non-White immigrants (during the time of Mahler’s book, New York’s top 4 countries of immigration were the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Haiti, and China.) Unfortunately, the deprivation didn’t stop there—economic shifts of deindustrialization and offshoring meant that fewer factories remained in NYC to employ these new workers at the wages that previously allowed White immigrants to achieve some level upward mobility. Without manufacturing jobs formerly provided by “made-in-America” companies, or government jobs formerly provided by Great Society spending, many working-class New Yorkers suffered greatly, with their main opportunities being restricted to the service industry and remaining shells of the municipal sector.
What’s more, New York’s titans of industry shifted to focus on leaders of the FIRE (finance, insurance, and real estate) sectors—an increasingly bubble-based economic picture. As developers became more central to the City’s prosperity than ever before, real estate tax revenue became the government’s primary source of revenue, incentivizing gentrification at a previously unseen scale. It was a perfect storm of tax breaks, economic bleakness, and true avarice.
Politicians for life, and the long shadow of Robert Moses
And who, you might ask, presided over this perfect storm? New York’s hopeful “mayor for life”, Ed Koch, surely has a big hand in Mahler’s answer. During his reign from 1978 to 1989, Koch presided over the “end” of the fiscal crisis by rolling out the red carpet for FIRE companies, and by rolling back on the services New Yorkers could expect from their cities. Even after the City recovered its financial solvency, Koch’s leadership remained plagued by this fear of the bondholders once again knocking at his door. He ignored many public interest issues that weren’t “good for business” until he couldn’t anymore: the homelessness that had increased due to his awarding luxury developers tax breaks to renovate the city’s SROs into luxury hotels, the police brutality and racial violence that plagued Black New Yorkers in every borough, and the AIDS epidemic that ravaged his fellow queer people (Koch being a closeted gay man seemed to be the worst kept secret in New York.) In Mayor Koch, we see a leader who prioritized the performance of governance (ex: the fanfare over the centennial anniversary for the Statue of Liberty) over the reality of governing a city with so many deep challenges. Perhaps this is an unfair read, but it’s the one Mahler paints.
Mahler also focuses on another soon-to-be politician, who would now like to remain the “president for life.” He started Trump’s stories with pieces I’d heard about: the rise through his father’s company, and his rental discrimination against Black tenants. I didn’t realize how central Trump was to this reinvention of New York’s ruling class—no longer the factory owners or robber barons, but instead the financiers and developers. Mahler claims that these new bigwigs were the City’s first wave of rich people to shamelessly flaunt their wealth. It reminds of what I’ve heard people say in recent days about his cult of personality, that so many people like him because he’s a “poor man’s idea of a rich man.” This publicity led to people calling for him to become the president as early as the 80s, something I never knew!!! When he first started running in 2015, it sounded so far-fetched to me—little did I know the seed had been sown years earlier. When Mahler describes Trump’s various mega-projects in New York, casino fiefdom in Atlantic City, and numerous schemes to secure zoning waivers, air rights, tax abatements, and public land dispositions; it immediately calls to mind Robert Moses’ bullish steamrolling through all public processes for his own development aims. It’s funny, then, that Robert Caro literally joined some of the campaigns against Trump’s Television City plans. Also, check out what Caro had to say about the Trump-Moses comparison in this Politico article:
Public service and advocacy: Opportunism or activism?
It’s funny to read this book so close to Olga Dies Dreaming, because I actually think Jonathan Mahler and Xóchitl González have a similar skepticism about people who consider themselves to be “for the people.” Mahler remains unconvinced by nearly every political talking head of the late 80s, seeing them all as a step away from grifters, no matter what their specific ideology was. I have to at least give him that—he’s consistently side-eyeing everybody!!
Some of his questions are as follows: was Rudy Giulani even being serious about prosecuting Wall Street bankers, or was he just using this as an opportunity to jumpstart his campaign? Did Al Sharpton ever care about obtaining justice for the family of people like Yusuf Hawkins and Michael Griffith, or did he want just enough attention so he could negotiate his piece of the DEI pie from White business leaders? Was Larry Kramer an evil and permanently disagreeable individual hellbent on revenge at all costs—even against the best interests of ACT UP? And more particularly, was Anthony Fauci (I DID NOT KNOW HIS STORY STARTED HERE) just another one of Kramer’s unfair targets, or was Dr. Fauci truly misguided in waiting to administer AZT trials with more caution, when he should have been using the urgency of the crisis to administer them more widely? It’s a dizzying set of questions, but I enjoyed watching Mahler ping-pong them back and forth on the page (or rather, in my headphones.)
Times really have changed…or have they?
Okay so I couldn't ever decide if I thought the culture wars felt unfathomable or wholly expected given where we are today. Some of the items felt very familiar to things we know about the “Black firsts”: NYPD Commissioner Ward’s embrace of the War on Drugs and disproportionate crack sentencing, and David Dinkins’ fence-straddling kumbaya approach to the outrage over hate crimes, are both postures central to modern critiques of the Black misleadership class. As someone who was 10 when Obama was elected, his presidential race was the first time I heard people in my community really discussing politics. While I remember my parents crying at the inauguration, that time usually recedes into my brain as something that happened. Until this book, I just don’t think I understood how tectonic something like having a Black mayor might have felt to people in the 80s—those who wanted it to happen, and those who didn’t!
Speaking of those who didn’t, I was shocked by how deputized white New Yorkers felt in what I consider to be very recent history. To be fair, we do have terrible modern instances of vigilantes attacking Black people on subways “out of fear”, like the defense of Jordan Neely’s murderer. However, the way white people saw Bernard Hugo Getz as a hero for assaulting four teens on the subway just seemed so far to me. The mob violence of white teenagers also seemed remarkable at first, since nowadays you rarely can get kids off Twitch for long enough to do anything IRL. The fact that whole teenage mobs joined together in Howard Beach to attack Michael Griffith and his stepfather, or in Bensonhurst to shoot Yusuf Hawkins?!?!? And then when people came to protest the wedding, other white people WALKED OUT OF THEIR WEDDINGS to throw things at the protestors and call them niggers?!? I will not say we’re not getting there (after all, the kids are certainly learning all sorts of egregious stuff on those Twitch streams), but it was just a lot to me.
The political debates around this violence all did seem very familiar to me. For instance, instead of defending the Bensonhurst protestors, Mayor Koch chastised them for “escalating the tension” and “blaming the neighborhood” for the action of—checks notes—boys who were raised in the neighborhood. The debates around harm reduction projects also felt immediately recognizable to our modern time. Commissioner Ward’s notes that “you wouldn’t try this in Scarsdale” is the exact same argument people are still having in Kensington about needle exchanges or in Mechanicsville about rapid rehousing for the homeless. The challenge is, both sides are right—we don’t try these “compassion experiments” in white or wealthy areas, AND unhoused residents of an area shouldn’t be denied services, or left out of the discussion of “what the neighbors prefer.”
Joyce Brown seemed to be another Rorschach test where New Yorkers’ opinions split along racial and political lines. The main question of her case seemed to be should the state be able to involuntarily commit people who were not offered any other way to meet their basis needs? Ed Koch said yes in 1988, and so has Eric Adams in 2025 (if they let him, Zohran Mamdani will govern differently.) This one was the hardest issue for me, as I have been in the position of involuntarily committing a loved one because we believed it was the safest thing for them at the time. However, I know that my notions of “safety” are informed by ableism and our society’s denial of autonomy to people with mental health challenges. So, more to learn for me!!
Final thoughts
I’m literally giving myself a headache while writing this, so I’m going to wrap up here. While I enjoyed Gods of New York, you do have to buy into Mahler’s skepticism, and be patient as he jumps around topically—one minute you’re talking about Black politicians in Bed-Stuy, then a community meeting for ACT UP, then a Riot in Tompkins Square Park (I learned this is the place RENT! was set around), then the developers trying to gentrify East Village which surrounded Tompkins Square Park, then the mayoral races where every candidate had been bought out by the developers, then the future mayoral candidates who were trying to prosecute Wall Street to secure votes, then back!!! And I didn’t even mention the Central Park jogger case and the stuff with the Exonerated 5, OR the fact that people thought Spike Lee’s movies were going to incite a race war?!?! It was just a wild time.
As a reader who is on a quest to solve the enduring mystery of Black Gen X, I found this to be a helpful primer on what the world was like when they were entering adulthood. As a planning/geography person, I was also fascinated by Mahler’s discussion of this time period as when the center of Black New York shifted from Harlem to Brooklyn, and particularly Bed-Stuy. In some ways, it might have been a short-lived shift, due to the gentrification that has changed both of those neighborhoods so deeply. I am not a New Yorker (THANK GOD), but I wonder where people would say that center might even be today? Brownsville; or Jamaica, Queens; or maybe even Mount Vernon? I will have to ask my friend, who is from East Flatbush, and who I think is actually coming over to “co-work” soon. SO, GOODBYE!
As Phillips-Fein notes, it wasn’t even conceivable to deprive the city of so many public services until the flight of white New Yorkers was outpaced by the entry of Black and Puerto Rican migrants, along with other non-White immigrants (during the time of Mahler’s book, New York’s top 4 countries of immigration were the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Haiti, and China.) Unfortunately, the deprivation didn’t stop there—economic shifts of deindustrialization and offshoring meant that fewer factories remained in NYC to employ these new workers at the wages that previously allowed White immigrants to achieve some level upward mobility. Without manufacturing jobs formerly provided by “made-in-America” companies, or government jobs formerly provided by Great Society spending, many working-class New Yorkers suffered greatly, with their main opportunities being restricted to the service industry and remaining shells of the municipal sector.
What’s more, New York’s titans of industry shifted to focus on leaders of the FIRE (finance, insurance, and real estate) sectors—an increasingly bubble-based economic picture. As developers became more central to the City’s prosperity than ever before, real estate tax revenue became the government’s primary source of revenue, incentivizing gentrification at a previously unseen scale. It was a perfect storm of tax breaks, economic bleakness, and true avarice.
Politicians for life, and the long shadow of Robert Moses
And who, you might ask, presided over this perfect storm? New York’s hopeful “mayor for life”, Ed Koch, surely has a big hand in Mahler’s answer. During his reign from 1978 to 1989, Koch presided over the “end” of the fiscal crisis by rolling out the red carpet for FIRE companies, and by rolling back on the services New Yorkers could expect from their cities. Even after the City recovered its financial solvency, Koch’s leadership remained plagued by this fear of the bondholders once again knocking at his door. He ignored many public interest issues that weren’t “good for business” until he couldn’t anymore: the homelessness that had increased due to his awarding luxury developers tax breaks to renovate the city’s SROs into luxury hotels, the police brutality and racial violence that plagued Black New Yorkers in every borough, and the AIDS epidemic that ravaged his fellow queer people (Koch being a closeted gay man seemed to be the worst kept secret in New York.) In Mayor Koch, we see a leader who prioritized the performance of governance (ex: the fanfare over the centennial anniversary for the Statue of Liberty) over the reality of governing a city with so many deep challenges. Perhaps this is an unfair read, but it’s the one Mahler paints.
Mahler also focuses on another soon-to-be politician, who would now like to remain the “president for life.” He started Trump’s stories with pieces I’d heard about: the rise through his father’s company, and his rental discrimination against Black tenants. I didn’t realize how central Trump was to this reinvention of New York’s ruling class—no longer the factory owners or robber barons, but instead the financiers and developers. Mahler claims that these new bigwigs were the City’s first wave of rich people to shamelessly flaunt their wealth. It reminds of what I’ve heard people say in recent days about his cult of personality, that so many people like him because he’s a “poor man’s idea of a rich man.” This publicity led to people calling for him to become the president as early as the 80s, something I never knew!!! When he first started running in 2015, it sounded so far-fetched to me—little did I know the seed had been sown years earlier. When Mahler describes Trump’s various mega-projects in New York, casino fiefdom in Atlantic City, and numerous schemes to secure zoning waivers, air rights, tax abatements, and public land dispositions; it immediately calls to mind Robert Moses’ bullish steamrolling through all public processes for his own development aims. It’s funny, then, that Robert Caro literally joined some of the campaigns against Trump’s Television City plans. Also, check out what Caro had to say about the Trump-Moses comparison in this Politico article:
The Times in April 1985 compared Trump to the late Robert Moses—“New York’s master builder,”…Said the Times, “If Mr. Moses were to be born again, he’d probably return as Mr. Trump.”
“Trump did want to be identified with him,” Robert Caro, who wrote the definitive biography of Moses, The Power Broker, told me. “For a time, I used to hear—people would say to me—‘Donald Trump is the next Robert Moses.’ … But I always felt he himself was behind people saying that, if you know what I mean—that he wanted to be the next Robert Moses. And that’s really a terribly revealing thing. Moses, he didn’t let people stand in his way. He targeted—he not only evicted all these people, … he hounded them out like cattle. He targeted poor neighborhoods and particularly poor neighborhoods that were black … and Puerto Rican … because he felt they were the most defenseless against him.”
Caro continued: “To admire him is to say a lot about yourself.”
Public service and advocacy: Opportunism or activism?
It’s funny to read this book so close to Olga Dies Dreaming, because I actually think Jonathan Mahler and Xóchitl González have a similar skepticism about people who consider themselves to be “for the people.” Mahler remains unconvinced by nearly every political talking head of the late 80s, seeing them all as a step away from grifters, no matter what their specific ideology was. I have to at least give him that—he’s consistently side-eyeing everybody!!
Some of his questions are as follows: was Rudy Giulani even being serious about prosecuting Wall Street bankers, or was he just using this as an opportunity to jumpstart his campaign? Did Al Sharpton ever care about obtaining justice for the family of people like Yusuf Hawkins and Michael Griffith, or did he want just enough attention so he could negotiate his piece of the DEI pie from White business leaders? Was Larry Kramer an evil and permanently disagreeable individual hellbent on revenge at all costs—even against the best interests of ACT UP? And more particularly, was Anthony Fauci (I DID NOT KNOW HIS STORY STARTED HERE) just another one of Kramer’s unfair targets, or was Dr. Fauci truly misguided in waiting to administer AZT trials with more caution, when he should have been using the urgency of the crisis to administer them more widely? It’s a dizzying set of questions, but I enjoyed watching Mahler ping-pong them back and forth on the page (or rather, in my headphones.)
Times really have changed…or have they?
Okay so I couldn't ever decide if I thought the culture wars felt unfathomable or wholly expected given where we are today. Some of the items felt very familiar to things we know about the “Black firsts”: NYPD Commissioner Ward’s embrace of the War on Drugs and disproportionate crack sentencing, and David Dinkins’ fence-straddling kumbaya approach to the outrage over hate crimes, are both postures central to modern critiques of the Black misleadership class. As someone who was 10 when Obama was elected, his presidential race was the first time I heard people in my community really discussing politics. While I remember my parents crying at the inauguration, that time usually recedes into my brain as something that happened. Until this book, I just don’t think I understood how tectonic something like having a Black mayor might have felt to people in the 80s—those who wanted it to happen, and those who didn’t!
Speaking of those who didn’t, I was shocked by how deputized white New Yorkers felt in what I consider to be very recent history. To be fair, we do have terrible modern instances of vigilantes attacking Black people on subways “out of fear”, like the defense of Jordan Neely’s murderer. However, the way white people saw Bernard Hugo Getz as a hero for assaulting four teens on the subway just seemed so far to me. The mob violence of white teenagers also seemed remarkable at first, since nowadays you rarely can get kids off Twitch for long enough to do anything IRL. The fact that whole teenage mobs joined together in Howard Beach to attack Michael Griffith and his stepfather, or in Bensonhurst to shoot Yusuf Hawkins?!?!? And then when people came to protest the wedding, other white people WALKED OUT OF THEIR WEDDINGS to throw things at the protestors and call them niggers?!? I will not say we’re not getting there (after all, the kids are certainly learning all sorts of egregious stuff on those Twitch streams), but it was just a lot to me.
The political debates around this violence all did seem very familiar to me. For instance, instead of defending the Bensonhurst protestors, Mayor Koch chastised them for “escalating the tension” and “blaming the neighborhood” for the action of—checks notes—boys who were raised in the neighborhood. The debates around harm reduction projects also felt immediately recognizable to our modern time. Commissioner Ward’s notes that “you wouldn’t try this in Scarsdale” is the exact same argument people are still having in Kensington about needle exchanges or in Mechanicsville about rapid rehousing for the homeless. The challenge is, both sides are right—we don’t try these “compassion experiments” in white or wealthy areas, AND unhoused residents of an area shouldn’t be denied services, or left out of the discussion of “what the neighbors prefer.”
Joyce Brown seemed to be another Rorschach test where New Yorkers’ opinions split along racial and political lines. The main question of her case seemed to be should the state be able to involuntarily commit people who were not offered any other way to meet their basis needs? Ed Koch said yes in 1988, and so has Eric Adams in 2025 (if they let him, Zohran Mamdani will govern differently.) This one was the hardest issue for me, as I have been in the position of involuntarily committing a loved one because we believed it was the safest thing for them at the time. However, I know that my notions of “safety” are informed by ableism and our society’s denial of autonomy to people with mental health challenges. So, more to learn for me!!
Final thoughts
I’m literally giving myself a headache while writing this, so I’m going to wrap up here. While I enjoyed Gods of New York, you do have to buy into Mahler’s skepticism, and be patient as he jumps around topically—one minute you’re talking about Black politicians in Bed-Stuy, then a community meeting for ACT UP, then a Riot in Tompkins Square Park (I learned this is the place RENT! was set around), then the developers trying to gentrify East Village which surrounded Tompkins Square Park, then the mayoral races where every candidate had been bought out by the developers, then the future mayoral candidates who were trying to prosecute Wall Street to secure votes, then back!!! And I didn’t even mention the Central Park jogger case and the stuff with the Exonerated 5, OR the fact that people thought Spike Lee’s movies were going to incite a race war?!?! It was just a wild time.
As a reader who is on a quest to solve the enduring mystery of Black Gen X, I found this to be a helpful primer on what the world was like when they were entering adulthood. As a planning/geography person, I was also fascinated by Mahler’s discussion of this time period as when the center of Black New York shifted from Harlem to Brooklyn, and particularly Bed-Stuy. In some ways, it might have been a short-lived shift, due to the gentrification that has changed both of those neighborhoods so deeply. I am not a New Yorker (THANK GOD), but I wonder where people would say that center might even be today? Brownsville; or Jamaica, Queens; or maybe even Mount Vernon? I will have to ask my friend, who is from East Flatbush, and who I think is actually coming over to “co-work” soon. SO, GOODBYE!
October 17, 2025
I didn’t expect to enjoy this book as much as I did. Really interesting to read this history of NY. I was in my teens during the 80’s and knew some of the names so it was also nostalgic and informative to go back and have the full narrative as an adult. There are so many issues at play in NY at that time that later show up nationally. And the real life characters are absolutely larger than life as the title implies.
Donald Trump was just as awful then as now and it’s almost comical to read his early history and realize he really didn’t change at all. Lots of seeds set during this time for his later presidency including familiar names and tropes especially on race and fueling division and being a nightmare businessman. I have no idea how he fooled people into thinking he was a genius. The early history of Rudy Giuliani before he became mayor was new to me and didn’t do anything to make him more likable. He deserved what he got in the end I think.
Al Sharpton was quite the character and I feel like I have a lot more empathy for what he was trying to accomplish even through some of his tabloid scandals and what not. By the end of the book, I left with a real sense that he never strayed from his moral commitment to poor black folks who needed justice. I even understand his commitment to Brawley against the system. He chose to believe black folks every time snd never regretted it. Good for him. I loved the parts about Spike Lee and Do the Right Thing. I’ve been listening to lots of Public Enemy and other 80’s and 90’s music as I was reading to capture the vibe. That stuff slaps and continues its relevance today. Powerful stuff.
I had no idea Mayor Koch was gay. His handling of the AIDs crisis was disappointing. Though he overall ended up a more sympathetic character than I expected him to be. He really did love the city and being Mayor. I loved following Kramers journey as an activist and founder of ACT UP. He had an outsized influence on Fauci which clearly drove a different response from him with COVID to the public’s benefit.
I feel sorry for Dinkins. It feels like he should have been more effective than he was but punished for being a nice, thoughtful, unifying person at a time when the moment demanded charismatic, divisive figures to everyone’s detriment. Again, a foreshadow of what happens nationally.
I’m still processing all of the racial division and violence. It’s depressing to realize nothing has changed. It feels like a repetitive cycle of injustice for black folks facing a racist justice system and a self-preserving, terrified public. I have no answers. But I think it might be time to again tap into that civil rights energy and keep trying.
Books like these are why I love history.
Donald Trump was just as awful then as now and it’s almost comical to read his early history and realize he really didn’t change at all. Lots of seeds set during this time for his later presidency including familiar names and tropes especially on race and fueling division and being a nightmare businessman. I have no idea how he fooled people into thinking he was a genius. The early history of Rudy Giuliani before he became mayor was new to me and didn’t do anything to make him more likable. He deserved what he got in the end I think.
Al Sharpton was quite the character and I feel like I have a lot more empathy for what he was trying to accomplish even through some of his tabloid scandals and what not. By the end of the book, I left with a real sense that he never strayed from his moral commitment to poor black folks who needed justice. I even understand his commitment to Brawley against the system. He chose to believe black folks every time snd never regretted it. Good for him. I loved the parts about Spike Lee and Do the Right Thing. I’ve been listening to lots of Public Enemy and other 80’s and 90’s music as I was reading to capture the vibe. That stuff slaps and continues its relevance today. Powerful stuff.
I had no idea Mayor Koch was gay. His handling of the AIDs crisis was disappointing. Though he overall ended up a more sympathetic character than I expected him to be. He really did love the city and being Mayor. I loved following Kramers journey as an activist and founder of ACT UP. He had an outsized influence on Fauci which clearly drove a different response from him with COVID to the public’s benefit.
I feel sorry for Dinkins. It feels like he should have been more effective than he was but punished for being a nice, thoughtful, unifying person at a time when the moment demanded charismatic, divisive figures to everyone’s detriment. Again, a foreshadow of what happens nationally.
I’m still processing all of the racial division and violence. It’s depressing to realize nothing has changed. It feels like a repetitive cycle of injustice for black folks facing a racist justice system and a self-preserving, terrified public. I have no answers. But I think it might be time to again tap into that civil rights energy and keep trying.
Books like these are why I love history.
December 11, 2025
The lightest touch applied to the bleakest material in this surprisingly readable portrait of late 1980s New York.
This is not my favorite era of New York history, so I wasn’t expecting this one to speak to me at all. Credit to Mahler, who made a subject I had very little interest in feel unputdownable to me here in Gods of Nee York.
This reads incredibly quickly for a longish nonfiction book, especially one that is hyper-focused on a very short period of time. There’s a bit of repetitiveness to some of the content (mostly in the service of creating a completist account of this era), but mostly this feels well edited and as though everything included really did need to be there.
It’s a sad story, for the most part, and because this era of power in New York City is mostly populated by bad actors, there isn’t really anyone to root for, so to speak. Still, it’s fascinating to read about how all of this unfolded and how seemingly disparate issues impacted one another and the city’s fate.
I didn’t love how much of Donald Trump we got here (aren’t we suffering enough with the current iteration ?), but if you’re not familiar with how he got where he is now, this book does a great job of showing the early stages of the grift as well as demonstrating how bad actors in housing and development played a huge part in nearly destroying the city.
*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*
This is not my favorite era of New York history, so I wasn’t expecting this one to speak to me at all. Credit to Mahler, who made a subject I had very little interest in feel unputdownable to me here in Gods of Nee York.
This reads incredibly quickly for a longish nonfiction book, especially one that is hyper-focused on a very short period of time. There’s a bit of repetitiveness to some of the content (mostly in the service of creating a completist account of this era), but mostly this feels well edited and as though everything included really did need to be there.
It’s a sad story, for the most part, and because this era of power in New York City is mostly populated by bad actors, there isn’t really anyone to root for, so to speak. Still, it’s fascinating to read about how all of this unfolded and how seemingly disparate issues impacted one another and the city’s fate.
I didn’t love how much of Donald Trump we got here (aren’t we suffering enough with the current iteration ?), but if you’re not familiar with how he got where he is now, this book does a great job of showing the early stages of the grift as well as demonstrating how bad actors in housing and development played a huge part in nearly destroying the city.
*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*
January 20, 2026
Really fun non-fiction about an era in New York that illustrates a lot about what's happened to us as a country.
A theme running through the book that struck me is how eager people are to be entertained by those in power, rather than just having boring yet capable people running the show. Most of the heavy-hitters in this book, from Ed Koch to Rudy Giuliani, have an element of performance to their persona that obscures their lack of substance or any real achievements. Even the players in the book who meant well - Larry Kramer's noble mission of raising AIDS awareness comes to mind - rely on combative, attention-grabbing tactics to push their agenda.
We're shown again and again that the surest way to get attention is through theatrics, exaggerations, and oftentimes complete lies. This all culminates with the biggest showman of the book, Donald Trump, becoming president. The only figure in the book who did not lean heavily on these tactics - eventual New York mayor David Dinkins - lasted only 1 term and was replaced by Rudy Giuliani, whose "achievements" as a prosecutor were highly embellished.
The Gods of New York is equal parts entertaining and enlightening. I loved Mahler's narrative and how he jumped around from storyline to storyline. Definitely one that will stick with me.
A theme running through the book that struck me is how eager people are to be entertained by those in power, rather than just having boring yet capable people running the show. Most of the heavy-hitters in this book, from Ed Koch to Rudy Giuliani, have an element of performance to their persona that obscures their lack of substance or any real achievements. Even the players in the book who meant well - Larry Kramer's noble mission of raising AIDS awareness comes to mind - rely on combative, attention-grabbing tactics to push their agenda.
We're shown again and again that the surest way to get attention is through theatrics, exaggerations, and oftentimes complete lies. This all culminates with the biggest showman of the book, Donald Trump, becoming president. The only figure in the book who did not lean heavily on these tactics - eventual New York mayor David Dinkins - lasted only 1 term and was replaced by Rudy Giuliani, whose "achievements" as a prosecutor were highly embellished.
The Gods of New York is equal parts entertaining and enlightening. I loved Mahler's narrative and how he jumped around from storyline to storyline. Definitely one that will stick with me.
December 12, 2025
I could not put this book down. Incredibly fast paced for a 400+ page nonfiction book. Fantastic retelling of the late 1980s in New York that is incredibly timely. Fascinating to read about Giuliani and Trump in the 80s as well as understanding the K shaped economic recovery that “saved” the city from the 70s. I learned so much about my hometown and I’m grateful that authors like Mahler are putting out incredible texts that enrich our understanding of the greatest city in the world.
Highly recommend!
Highly recommend!
October 2, 2025
What were Trump, Giuliani and Spike Lee up to in 1980’s New York? That’s what this book is about. Almost 500 pages of it and believe it or not, but it is a page turner. Trump from rags to riches to rags in Atlantic City real estate that is and then moving on to his next career. Fascinating decade in New York with Koch as mayor. Never heard of him before but what a fascinating man he was. I feel I got to know also other fascinating persons such as Al Sharpton.
December 28, 2025
Must read. I do think the author needed to do a better job of stitching together vignettes into broader reflections on the questions being asked. It sometimes felt like a riveting play by play, without a “so what”. Still did enjoy it - and what a fascinating set of characters, Ed Koch, Al Sharpton, Trump etc
November 23, 2025
I was there. And author Mahler captures the heady pressure cooker that was New York in the late 1980s. All the big personalities are here. Ed Koch. Rudy Giuliani. Spike Lee. Tawana Brawley. Al Sharpton. And ladies and gentlemen, Donald J. Trump.
Looking back, it’s a wonder we all escaped NYC alive.
This book moves like a rocket ship, covering all the key events and controversies of that time in that place. It’s amazing how many lesser-known names came to vivid life and were stuck deep in my memory.
Whether you lived through it or just want to understand where the seeds of our current time were planted, read this book.
Many thanks to Random House and NetGalley for the advance reader copy. .
Looking back, it’s a wonder we all escaped NYC alive.
This book moves like a rocket ship, covering all the key events and controversies of that time in that place. It’s amazing how many lesser-known names came to vivid life and were stuck deep in my memory.
Whether you lived through it or just want to understand where the seeds of our current time were planted, read this book.
Many thanks to Random House and NetGalley for the advance reader copy. .
October 2, 2025
A good reminder that the leopards in the jungle don’t change their spots
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November 11, 2025pls let jonathan mahler keep writing about the history of nyc this was so enthralling
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