Broadway: A History of New York City in Thirteen Miles

by Fran Leadon

In the early seventeenth century, in a backwater Dutch colony, there was a wide, muddy cow path that the settlers called the Brede Wegh. As the street grew longer, houses and taverns began to spring up alongside it. What was once New Amsterdam became New York, and farmlands gradually gave way to department stores, theaters, hotels, and, finally, the perpetual traffic of the twentieth century’s Great White Way. From Bowling Green all the way up to Marble Hill, Broadway takes us on a mile-by-mile journey up America’s most vibrant and complex thoroughfare, through the history at the heart of Manhattan.


Today, Broadway almost feels inevitable, but over the past four hundred years there have been thousands who have tried to draw and erase its path. Following their footsteps, we learn why one side of the street was once considered more fashionable than the other; witness the construction of Trinity Church, the Flatiron Building, and the Ansonia Hotel; the burning of P. T. Barnum’s American Museum; and discover that Columbia University was built on the site of an insane asylum. Along the way we meet Alexander Hamilton, Emma Goldman, Edgar Allan Poe, John James Audubon, "Bill the Butcher" Poole, and the assorted real-estate speculators, impresarios, and politicians who helped turn Broadway into New York’s commercial and cultural spine.


Broadway traces the physical and social transformation of an avenue that has been both the "Path of Progress" and a "street of broken dreams," home to both parades and riots, startling wealth and appalling destitution. Glamorous, complex, and sometimes troubling, the evolution of an oft-flooded dead end to a canyon of steel and glass is the story of American progress.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, New York, American History, Audiobook, American, Urbanism

512 pages, Hardcover

First published April 17, 2018

About the author

Fran Leadon is an architect and coauthor of the fifth edition of the AIA Guide to New York City. A native of Gainesville, Florida, he teaches at the City College of New York and lives in Brooklyn.

Reviews

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an absolute masterpiece of New York City historical writing. Breaking Broadway into its separate and distinct 13 miles, Fran Leadon brilliantly spools out a story that perambulates between race and class, individuals and mass movements, myths and hidden facts, and does so in a voice that welcomes the reader through time and place along one of the most important thoroughfares in the history of the world. I savored every page of this book.

[May Ling · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is the first of the type I'm reading. I love just off of Broadway and was curious about it's history. This book is stronger at the North and South ends of Broadway. I would say it's slightly weaker in my neighborhood, which was a shame.

I did, however learn a tremendous amount. I've seen old maps of NYC in the NYC Public library that show the slower development of the city. I had no idea that there use to be a road that was replaced called Bloomingdale Road. I also LOVE that it showed all the different locations of Tiffany & Co as it grew in luxury retail over the years. Kind of amazing if you think about it. Also fascinating to see that my alama mater was largely comprised of crazy house buildings. I did my masters there, but never did the tour. Maybe I ought to. It makes sense, though to me when I look at the buildings.

The famous names are great as you think of the landmarks. I just think that on the e-books versions, there could be even more done on the map to passage basis.

Still, that's like because i am in love with this city and just need more than the average bear. If you moved here, are in love with this city, or just visiting but have a need to know what you're looking at, I would give this book a shot.

[Caleb Hoyer · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m not sure exactly what my expectations for this book were, but it never quite nailed them. The book is organized geographically, going mile by mile up Broadway and recounting various pieces of history along the way. This is a perfectly good and interesting way to structure the book, but it meant that with each new mile we kept jumping back in time to an earlier period than the one we’d just finished. It made it difficult to understand the overall chronology of the street. But I’m not sure that a straightforward beginning-to-end history of the entire street would have been a better way to do it, so I can’t say it’s a flaw in the writing. The chapters are short and wide-ranging, ensuring that if one subject is not of much interest, it won’t be long before you get a completely new topic. But that does mean my overall level of interest felt very hit-and-miss. It’s well written, and at time very interesting. I think it may have been a more enjoyable read had I almost used it like a reference book, reading a random chapter here and there, rather than start to finish.

[Ray LaManna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is quite a complete history of the most famous street in America. Leadon starts right at the Battery with the Dutch and goes right up the entire 15 miles of Broadway...the history of the structures built and the characters involved is really fascinating...even a native-born Manhattanite as myself learned a great deal.

[Sophia Jaffe · Rating 5 out of 5]

so awesome. crazy in depth research but written in a very digestible way - i loved all of the personal stories that made this book not just about architecture and urban planning but also about the people living and designing broadway. so much history i didn’t know and am now motivated to learn more about. this book is incredible

[Phil Atteberry · Rating 2 out of 5]

The subtitle of this book is misleading—“A History of New York City in Thirteen Miles.” This is not a “history of New York City” in any meaningful way, but it does contain a wealth of historical anecdotes and vignettes.

The book’s problem, I think, is its concept. Every topic is dealt with in a few pages. For example, the labor tensions that coalesced around Union Square from the 1880’s to the early 1900’s is interesting; so is the development of the great department stores and the “Ladies Mile”; so is the development of electric streetlights and electric billboards and their effect on urban life; so is the rise of the theatrical industry around Times Square. But all those subjects are given a few pages. I would prefer a book about any one of them rather than a book that skims along the surface of all of them.

[Jerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it. First crisp fall day I will walk the 13 miles of Broadway!!!

[Micebyliz]

I loved the tidbits of history mingled in with larger events. I did wonder at one point just how long the damn street is? :) but then realized perhaps i should go to bed.
It's a history of mud and murder and greed and war. If you multiply that by the whole city or by other large cities, it becomes the history of this country in many ways. I never did understand why disaster has to change our behavior. What i mean is that why do we "need" it in order to be civil and kind?
Every time i read the NYT now i am saddened by the closing of another business that stood for many decades, but then a new place pops up and can also be cherished. So much changed in our society over the many years of Broadway...

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Years ago a friend and I walked the length of Broadway (in 3 separate outings). We started at the top and worked our way down, the opposite direction of the book, but I'm pleased that we noticed many of these highlights. (even went into the Dyckman farmhouse, our only diversion like that.)

[Seiche · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was looking more for a book about Broadway musicals. This was about the history of New York. This book was very monotonous with a few familiar names to brighten it up. I didn't enjoy it but it also was not what I was looking for.

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fran Leadon's "Broadway: A History of New York in Thirteen Miles" is a lively and densely packed chronicle of how New York's (even the US's) most famous street arrived at its current form. He breaks the book up by each mile to be able to home in on the characters, conflicts, and curiosities that defined that mile's history, and the book is filled with gems. It's best to read about a mile or two each day so that you don't get a sense of overload, but it's a delightful and informative read.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting history of Broadway, mile by mile, from the Battery to 238th St in Marble Hill. For me the sections on Upper Manhattan were the most interesting. Sad how much of old New York has been lost.

[Travis Hopwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyed the ride the author takes you on, but, like most road trips, this one gets a little long.

[Bill Lucey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hop on board as author and architect Fran Leadon treats readers to a 13-mile tour of Broadway Street in New York City, which was, believe it or not, an old Indian trail.

And for history buffs, readers will learn in “Broadway: A History of New York City in Thirteen Miles” that upper Broadway, in what is now Fort Tryon Park, was the stretch of land that Margaret Corbin on November 16, 1776, during the Revolutionary War, took over for her fatally injured husband and heroically shot the cannon against the advancing British. Corbin was the first woman awarded a military pension.

In a fast paced, beautifully written, meticulously researched, and always entertaining 400 or so pages, Leadon builds on the early foundations of one of the most famous streets in the world, documenting the first ticker tape parade, beginning in 1899 through Adolph Ochs relocating the New York Times at 1475 Broadway and the opening of the Times Tower in 1905; and of course, documenting the glitz and bright lights of the very heart of the American theatre industry, known to some as "The Great White Way." Imagine, in 1927 alone, 264 new shows opened on Broadway, including Jerome Kern’s “Showboat” at the Ziegfeld Theater.

What I found particularly revealing about Leadon’s vastly entertaining book was the way he unearthed the unique character and ethnic distinction of old Broadway, especially the west side of the street, before it gave way to lavish stores and affluent condominiums. The author, for example, gives the location of the old Almanac Broadway Drug store (with the soda fountain stools), the C & L Restaurant, the Tip Toe Inn, and Steinberg’s Dairy, among other distinctive fixtures of the neighborhood.

Baseball fans won’t be disappointed with Leadon’s account of Hilltop Park in Broadway (between 165th and 168th Street), home of the New York Highlanders (Yankees) before they abandoned the area for the Polo Grounds after the 1912 season.

All in all, Leadon does a spectacular job of indulging readers to the best Broadway has to offer from its early English settlers to the infusion of European immigrants through its heyday as a lively, bustling thoroughfare.

-Bill Lucey
WPLucey@gmail.com
July 9, 2018

[Liz Freeland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great NYC history centered on the development of Broadway, mile by mile. Informative and entertaining, with great anecdotes. Some of the issues touched on--an armed populace, anti-immigrant fervor--read like a warning from the 19th century to the 21st. Best of all, I got answers to a few niggling questions I'd always wondered about.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great idea and what a delightful book! Following the history of New York mile by mile up Broadway, a street that is at least 400 years old. My very first day living in New York, I walked from 81st and Broadway all the way to South Ferry at the tip of Manhattan. This book begins the opposite way and works its way up to the Bronx. Divided into sections for each mile, and each section with several chapters, you cover a tremendous amount of history, almost all of it fascinating. And you get a sense of the living city, changing and changing and constantly reinventing itself, just like the people who came to live there. A wonderful read.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed it, but despite the author's adept descriptions, I found myself referring to the few maps a lot. It would have been enriched by more maps and illustrations.

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

Facts, facts, facts. This book is a blizzard of facts. I think one has to be a true aficionado of New York history to fully appreciate it, because as the April 30, 2018 review of the book in the New York Times noted, "This is a book best read in several sittings; there is a lot of detail to absorb. At times, it can be nearly numbing. Is it really necessary to recite practically the entire inventory of the vast Arnold Constable department store, located in 1869 at Broadway and 19th Street?" I read this book in several sittings and was still overwhelmed. Another Goodreads reviewer, Caleb Hoyer, described it perfectly for me a couple of weeks ago: "I’m not sure exactly what my expectations for this book were, but it never quite nailed them. The book is organized geographically, going mile by mile up Broadway and recounting various pieces of history along the way. This is a perfectly good and interesting way to structure the book, but it meant that with each new mile we kept jumping back in time to an earlier period than the one we’d just finished. It made it difficult to understand the overall chronology of the street. But I’m not sure that a straightforward beginning-to-end history of the entire street would have been a better way to do it, so I can’t say it’s a flaw in the writing. The chapters are short and wide-ranging, ensuring that if one subject is not of much interest, it won’t be long before you get a completely new topic. But that does mean my overall level of interest felt very hit-and-miss. It’s well written, and at times very interesting. I think it may have been a more enjoyable read had I almost used it like a reference book, reading a random chapter here and there, rather than start to finish." Oh, yes, oh, yes. And I have to say that even though I lived in the New York area for 17 years (6 in Manhattan, 9 in Brooklyn, and 2 in New Jersey), I never really traveled much above Columbia University except to go to the Cloisters -- so I was thoroughly confused by the last portion of the book dealing with northern Manhattan when I couldn't remember any familiar landmarks. An incredibly well researched book, and certainly entertaining in many places, but what an information dump!

[Dylan Groves · Rating 4 out of 5]

audiobook. pretty niche, but wonderful while living in the area.

- broadway because it was a broad way: used for bringing cattle out to the grazing commons (by current city hall)
- history of grace and trinity churches
- union square site of famous emma goldman speech and iww protests
- 1900's building boom skepticism and fight against gentrification. Guy refuses to move
- madison square chair protests - people rejected idea of pay-to-stay logic of public spaces
- burnham does the flatiron - creates winds that blows hats and dresses
- benjamin rush does streetlights but gets beat out by edison
- manhattan beach guy was anti-semite and invesnted light-up signs
- times square names for nytimes (previously longacre) and owned by the astors, whose hotels kind of sucked
-- waldof astornia and st regis are competitions between astor kids
- yankees started where the presbyterian hospital is (called the "highlanders" and "invaders" bc they stole all the giants' players and fans from nearbye polo grounds)
- kinkel built the "skyscraper church" near columbia tallest church in Amerca
- columbia building housing over manhattanville was a total disaster, funded / approved by moses
- st marys church on old broadway somehow evades moses' uws gentrification
- all the astors and famous old-money people are at trinity cemetary
- olmstead (morningside park, prospect park, central park) was classist and anti-irish: he wanted washington heights to be a private playground for the rich
- palisades in NJ was bought by rockefeller just to guarantee it would beautiful to look across the water from the cloisters. cloisters statues mostly from barnard who did a lot of statues at columbia
- george washington bridge - othmar anman - most travelled bridge in the world - cornerstone of moses' purse/power
- subway makes it all central - almost went up east side
- not that much evidence it was built on top of a lenape trail

[Jackie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The history of the infamous American city that is the home of American Theatre, immigration, shopping, and a lot famous figures, like Poe and Hamilton, in history. The book takes us from the early days of New York City before electricity up to early 20th century and ends with the author implying that Broadway never ends.
Reading this work was fascinating illustration of the history of a city and state that I have visited a few times, even wanted to live for a while, but never really explored. When visiting the goal is to see a show and maybe do some shopping, but New York has so much more to offer. Leadon organizes it mile by mile covering the important developments that happened each mile, but makes the timeline a bit scattered and difficult to follow as he jumps around in time. There's at least one street map in each mile, which does give you an idea of the street. Each mile has photographs throughout, but not many, that show you important moments that were talked about in his book. If you love NYC you would probably enjoy this sum up of the history of the development of the famous city.

[Mme Forte · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author says it best (I'm paraphrasing): What if Broadway didn't just run north/south, but also back in time? Leadon takes the reader on a trip north from Lower Manhattan to the Bronx and beyond, telling tales of the people and events that made the history of New York's most famous street. From the earliest Dutch settlers to the bodegas and apartment houses of the 21st century, the stories of the famous and not-so-famous New Yorkers that Leadon tells only enhance the reader's current appreciation of the city and the street. It's hard to imagine Manhattan as a largely rural place, but those days come back to life as you read of how development spread northward from the island's southern tip along an axis that may or may not have once been a path trod by Native Americans long before the first Europeans reached these shores. Homes, famous stores, theaters, hotels, estates, housing projects, and their creators and inhabitants are all here, putting flesh on the bones of the street grid of the greatest city in the world.

[Richard Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the Goodreads blurb: I n the early seventeenth century, in a backwater Dutch colony, there was a wide, muddy cow path that the settlers called the Brede Wegh. As the street grew longer, houses and taverns began to spring up alongside it. What was once New Amsterdam became New York, and farmlands gradually gave way to department stores, theaters, hotels, and, finally, the perpetual traffic of the twentieth century’s Great White Way. From Bowling Green all the way up to Marble Hill, Broadway takes us on a mile-by-mile journey up America’s most vibrant and complex thoroughfare, through the history at the heart of Manhattan.

Lots of interesting stories, many of which would have been more engaging for me if they weren't about such egregiously corrupt, greedy, and power-hungry people. Good maps, although I found it hard to picture the topography of the island; a contour map would have been a good addition.

[Howard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. In fact, I enjoyed it much more than I expected too. As a displaced New Yorker, I picked it up in my local bookstore almost out of obligation, but once I started I was intrigued by the way the author arranged it. Instead of a typical chronological year by year history of New York, this is instead a geographic history of with each mile of Broadway given a chapter from it's first settlement to the present day . It's a wonderful concept, and the author backs it up with chapters full details and history I never knew about the city I love. My only quibble, and the reason I didn't give it five stars, is the dearth of maps. I would have liked one at the beginning of each chapter. Instead, there is one placed randomly every two chapters or so, making it difficult to find and refer back them. But overall this is a wonderful book that made me a little more homesick than I usually am.

[Phil · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book offers fascinating insight into the heart of NYC history via the buildings and neighborhoods found along iconic Broadway Avenue. Really enjoyed the author’s immersive approach to revealing the City’s past, as he walks the reader from lower to upper Manhattan all the while sharing anecdotes galore about notable heroes, villains, and ordinary folks who have wandered the same stretch of real estate over the past 400+ years..

Recently I had the pleasure of taking a leisurely summertime stroll along Broadway from Freedom Tower up to Gramercy Park. Each block along that nearly 3 mile trek was an adventure unto itself, filled with interesting people, buildings, shops and restaurants. It was basically an open air museum of both intellectual and pedestrian curiosities, and the author color commentates on much of what I saw along the way. Really enjoyed the walk and book! Highly recommend this one for anybody interested in NYC history.

[Al Lock · Rating 4 out of 5]

For any resident of Manhattan, Broadway is part of the local geography and a significant part of it. For me, I've worked on the corner of Broadway and 15th Street and lived on Broome Street just 50 meters or so from Broadway, so there is a part of Broadway that is somewhere I am very at home.

This book gives a lot more. It gives the history of Broadway through Manhattan mile by mile, from 1 Broadway to the top of the island. I discovered when the building that I lived in was built and what boom it was part of. I learned more about the building of Trinity Church and how the city developed as Broadway developed. From Lord & Taylor's to PT Barnum to John Jacob Astor to the Rockefellers, but also the little last farm in Manhattan, how the Cloisters came to be, etc.

A really good book for anyone interested in the history of Manhattan.

[Diane Thayer · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a LOT of information in this book! New York history buffs will love this book as it is packed with names, dates, addresses and historical facts.

I chose this book as an audio CD because I was doing a lot of driving. Listening to the book definitely held my interest but, I understand that the print version of the book has pictures and that would certainly have added a valuable component to the book. As it was, I got a map of NYC and that helped me follow the narrative.

I recommend this book, though with the caveat that it is not necessarily something you sit down and read, or listen to, simply for pleasure. It takes work to absorb all the information packed into the text.

That being said, the next time I go to NYC I intend to review a print version of the book and then take a 13 mile walk up Broadway!

[Gary Gomes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having grown up in New York (Brooklyn & Queens) I am often fascinated by how much I don't know of my city's history. There is just too much of it! That being said, its worth reading about it in parts. This book, solely on the history of the 13 Miles of Broadway (within the bounds of Manhatten) covered countless things I was aware of in great detail, things I was somewhat aware of but did not associate to Broadway's history and some things I had absolutely no prior knowledge of. So many parts of Broadway that I was familar with but can see now in a new light with this history behind it, and so many parts of Broadway I hope to go back and see sometime (especially uptown where I am probably least familar). If you love exploring those parts of the history of New York that deserve a detail level of information this book would definitely be worth it.

[Autumn Kovach · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the best NY book I've read since Ada Calhoun's St. Marks is dead. I read 1-3 chapters each day because there was so much information in every chapter. "Broadway" is very well organized and was written intuitively; beginning at the bottom of Manhattan, where discovery and development began and was built up north over the span of 100 -/+ years. Fran covers a range of topics from traffic, land ownership, inventions of electricity and the subway as well as notable names that now make more sense such as Hamilton, Poe, Astor, Rockefeller, Barnum and Barnard (the founder of the Cloisters). This is a fabulous reference book for NY history and a starting point for anyone wanting to learn about one of the most iconic and well-known streets. Highly recommend.

[Victoria Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

The neon lights may be bright on Broadway, but it's come a long way, baby! This amazing and highly detailed saga begins in New Amsterdam and the Brede Wegh in 1653, and in 13 miles and 50 brief chapters tells the story of this world famous street and the myriads of changes and development through to the present time. A shame so many of the wonderful old mansions and buildings were torn down to make way for the new; however, what an amazing history and saga. There are 13 sections to the book (each one telling the development of each mile). And what a story those 13 miles have to tell! This took me quite awhile to get through, but it was worth it. Someone should write a musical........

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very consolidated history of New York at that. But Broadway itself is an allegorical street. Really, no one book can do the stories of Broadway justice. This book tries but the subject matter is just to immense. The book is devided into the miles of the street as it moves north from the Battery to the northern tip of Manhattan. It seems that some miles get cut short but then the book could be three times it’s length and that might still apply.
In the last analysis, this book is well written but it is more for the City lover than for the seeker of detailed history.