New York Sawed in Half: An Urban Historical

by Joel Rose

In 1824, the inhabitants of New York City were just returning from the wilds of Greenwich Village after having fled a yellow fever epidemic that threatened to devastate the population of 150,000. The recent economic depression forced many of the city's laborers out of work. It was a time of extreme gullibility, a time when newspapers began to realize that sensation sold, truth or lies, giving way to a rash of hoaxes.

So when two men of supposed high reputation began a rumor that Manhattan was sinking into the harbor because of overdevelopment on its southern tip, everyone listened closely. The men had been sent, they claimed, to save Manhattan from inevitable doom. Their idea: to saw New York in half, drag it out to sea, turn it around and reattach it to the mainland at Kingsbridge. Far fetched? Not at the time when a river was being forged through the mountains to create the Erie Canal. The wonders of engineering made anything possible. And so begins the story of the greatest hoax ever played on the people of New York City.

Genres: New York, History

160 pages, Hardcover

First published May 4, 2001

Reviews

[Anne · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book itself is a hoax pulled on the reader, ending note from the author notwithstanding.

Aside from that, I found the prose less than interesting through most of the book. The highlights for me were actually when the author went into detail about other historical hoaxes.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend the book to others unless they had a specialized interest in the history of NYC.

[Mickey Bits · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent bit of trivia to add to the collection of factoids, anecdotes, and other little used information that lives in that brain of yours. After finishing the book I was browsing the bibliography and end notes. It occurred that Joel Rose takes this obscure, esoteric episode and synthesizes an interesting tale. The incident itself was recorded for posterity long after the fact. Even then many of the key bits of information were sparse, if not lost to history. Rose fleshes out the episode. The lack of detailed information gives the author an opportunity to describe the aspects of daily life in New York at that time.

Supermarkets were not yet in existence, so how indeed did folks go about the business of buying the food for dinner and other meals. I was transported to a New York vastly different from the contemporary, modern beast it is today. If it sucks to be poor in this day and age, but compared with the desperation and misery of poor folks in the early 19th century New York, it would be considered a life of relative luxury.

One gripe, which has nothing to do with the author is a lack of an official list of all the "urban historical" titles in this series. One can glean most of them with some adept Google and Goodreads searches, but why not just have a list? I serendipitously found this one touted on the jacket of Bourdain's Typhoid Mary book.

[Virginia · Rating 2 out of 5]

You finish the book just to be told it wasn’t real and that the author took it upon himself to further embellish the story. It seems as though he should have led with that, rather than have the whole book come off as some sort of vanity project. It’s an interesting story, but it should be made clear from the beginning that it’s highly fictionalized.

[Terri · Rating 3 out of 5]

But is it true?

[Robert Hudder · Rating 3 out of 5]

A neat hoax story about the time New York was almost sawed in half and how that hoax came to be.

[Mark Stodghill · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some intriguing History but overall just a fair read

[Krystal · Rating 1 out of 5]

what a waste of time. wouldn't be so ticked off if the writing itself hadn't been so difficult to get through or the ending so lame.

[Ben Jaques-Leslie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty interesting story of a hoax in New York in the nineteenth century, but felt a little it would have been a better article rather than book.