The WPA Guide to New York City: The Federal Writers' Project Guide to 1930s New York

The WPA Guide to the City

by Work Projects Administration, William H. Whyte

This tour guide for time travelers offers New York-lovers and thirties buffs an endlessly fascinating look at life as it was lived in the days when a trolley ride cost five cents, a room at the Plaza hotel was $7.50, Dodger fans flocked to Ebbetts Field, and the new World's Fair was the talk of the town. The New York of 1939 was a city where adventures began "under the clock" at the Biltmore, and the big liners sailed at midnight. The Yankees were on their way to four in a row, and Times Square was truly the crossroads of the world.

Genres: History, New York, Travel, Nonfiction, Reference, Architecture, American History

700 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1939

Reviews

[Owen Hatherley]

Remarkable snapshot of the New Deal city, one moment telling you about a skyscraper or a 'Colonial Georgian' mansion and the next a new public housing project or hospital. This edition has an already very dated intro by William Whyte, but what would be much more useful is one telling you who wrote which texts (there's a few famous names in the long list at the start), who made the (excellent) woodcuts and photographs, etc.

[Jonathan Lopez]

This is a fascinating reprint of a guide to New York City published in the 1930s, having been commissioned by the federal WPA project. It's not something that you sit down and read cover to cover, but it is jam-packed with fascinating tidbits that bring old New York to life.

[Catherine Mustread]

Yes, I'm biased, as a GIANT FAN of the WPA state and city books (mostly) published in the late 1930s. How long ago that was -- 90 years! -- yet doesn't seem that long past in the scheme of things. Full of maps and lists and recommendations, I plan to review this all again before my next trip to NYC.

[Molly]

I once had this book checked out for nearly six months (I found it deep in the stacks, and nobody had checked it out for DECADES, so I didn't mind using the power of a faculty-staff library card to check it out for a month at a time) and used to just pick it up and read a section from time to time. For some reason I've been thinking of it again over the last couple of days, and wish I had it around.

[Paul Jellinek]

For anyone who loves New York, this book is a treasure. Compiled by first-rate unemployed writers during the Depression, it provides a burrough-by-burrough, neighborhood-by-neighborhood account of the world's greatest metropolis, past and present (the present being the 1930's). You will never see New York in quite the same way again.

[Drew Gordon]

Not really a "read," it's a guide book written about all five boroughs in the 30's to give writers something to do during the economic depression. Excellent pictures and interesting history of what New York's neighborhoods once were.

[John Michlig]

Re-acquired after losing it in '08. Crucial for researching a book project.