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A defining American story of millions of immigrants, hundreds of languages, and one great city



New York has been America's city of immigrants for nearly four centuries. Growing from Peter Minuit's tiny settlement of 1626 to one with more than three million immigrants today, the city has always been a magnet for transplants from all over the globe. It is only fitting that the United States, a "nation of immigrants," is home to the only world city built primarily by immigration. More immigrants have entered the United States through New York than through all other entry points combined, making New York's immigrant saga a quintessentially American story.



City of Dreams is the long-overdue, inspiring, and defining account of New York's both famous and forgotten immigrants: the young man from the Caribbean who relocated to New York and became a Founding Father; an Italian immigrant who toiled for years at railroad track maintenance before achieving his dream of becoming a nationally renowned poet; Russian-born Emma Goldman, who condoned the murder of American industrialists as a means of aiding downtrodden workers; Dominican immigrant Oscar de la Renta,who dressed first ladies from Jackie Kennedy to Michelle Obama. Over ten years in the making, Tyler Anbinder's story is one of innovators and artists, revolutionaries and rioters, staggering deprivation and soaring triumphs. Today's immigrants are really no different from those who have come to America in centuries past--and their story has never before been told with such breadth of scope, lavish research, and resounding spirit.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Before 1875, there were no restrictions on U.S. immigration. Those arriving in New York were checked for medical conditions and quarantined if necessary but otherwise entered the city to find livelihoods and communities, or to move West. -Historian Anbinder (Five Points) focuses on certain periods of New York's immigration history, selecting eras with rich histories that helped build the city's multicultural landscape. Beginning with the founding of New Amsterdam as a Dutch colony in the 1700s, Anbinder explains the transition to English rule as the territory became known as New York. Even as early as 1700, real estate costs could be exorbitant, with many residents wanting to live in "desirable" areas. Anbinder's research is thorough and thoughtful; he doesn't gloss over difficulties, ethnic clashes, racism, slavery, or poverty. Rather, he explores the challenges of assimilation and what gets lost in the process of generations becoming "Americanized" through stories of prominent New Yorkers and more typical immigrant experiences. The author covers a lot of ground in readable and accessible prose that captures how the United States has become a nation of multifaceted cultures. VERDICT Essential for civic-minded readers, history buffs, fans of New York, and public and academic libraries.-Candice Kail, Columbia Univ. Libs., New York © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Anbinder (Five Points), a professor of history at George Washington University, traces the history of New York City's immigrant groups from the earliest Dutch settlers to the waves of Caribbean and Chinese immigrants who have more recently made their mark on the city, spinning a tale of tragedy and triumph that comes with political teeth. Anbinder adeptly shows that the same fears that dominate 21st-century debates on immigration were alive and well in earlier eras, arguing persuasively that 19th-century immigrant communities were far more insular and impregnable than their present-day counterparts. In fact, so discrete were these ethnic neighborhoods that a Jew leaving the familiar confines of the Lower East Side or an Italian venturing north of Washington Square was said to be "going to America." Anbinder is a master at taking a history with which many readers will be familiar-tenement houses, temperance societies, slums-and making it new, strange, and heartbreakingly vivid. The stories of individuals, including those of the entrepreneurial Steinway brothers and the tragic poet Pasquale D'Angelo, are undeniably compelling, but it's Anbinder's stunning image of New York as a true city of immigrants that captures the imagination. Agent: Jill Grinberg, Jill Grinberg Literary. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

CHOICE Review

In this sprawling but engaging volume, historian Anbinder (George Washington Univ.) largely delivers on the challenge of fully surveying the history of immigration to New York City, a subject never addressed to this extent. Unlike many histories of New York immigration, this book begins with early Dutch settlement and British colonial years before moving to more familiar territory. Hampered by a paucity of sources, the early chapters lack the fast-paced narrative found in the rest of the book, where the story of immigration in the creation of the modern metropolis comes fully alive. Anbinder periodically employs more intimate personal stories to add life to an occasionally broadly drawn account. The heart of the book arrives in chapters on the 19th and 20th centuries, when masses of immigrants repeated and remade patterns of settlement, work, and challenges of previous generations of newcomers. Readers unfamiliar with the many neighborhoods of New York's boroughs are aided by helpful maps. While the role of religion in immigrant communities seems underappreciated, recurring outbreaks of anti-immigrant resistance get notable attention. Because immigration to New York is ongoing, the end of the book naturally merges with current issues, many of which mirror earlier struggles. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Most levels/libraries. --Charles K. Piehl, Minnesota State University, Mankato

Booklist Review

*Starred Review* New York City is unique, and it was made that, in large part, by being a city of immigrants. There were more immigrants living in New York in 1950 than the full population in all but two other American cities. This superb book may not quite live up to its subtitle (it emphasizes only the largest immigrant group in each era), but it is full of fascinating, rock-solid history and provides compelling texture behind the larger trends. Although it starts with conflicts between the English and Dutch, it quickly goes on to the huge German (John Jacob Astor and others) and Irish immigrations (many, especially after the potato blight began in 1847). Though groups are well handled in the aggregate, Anbinder also covers important individuals (Scotsman Cadwallader Colden, Samuel Gompers, the Steinways, and many lesser others). His coverage of the Italians and his own precursors, the Jews, is balanced and excellent. Among the book's most powerful sections are those dealing with the horrendous living conditions for most immigrants in New York and the even-more-horrific transatlantic journey. Along with immigration, of course, came nativism, Know Nothing-ism, and restrictions of multiple kinds all addressed thoroughly. The well-chosen photographs help illustrate the fine narrative, as do the maps and charts.--Levine, Mark Copyright 2016 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

From the Dutch to the British, featuring a concentration on the waves of Irish and German in the late 19th century, this thoroughgoing work offers a host of immigrant sagas that were integral to the creation of the New York City cauldron. Proceeding with grand themes such as Anglicization, War, Liberty, and Refuge, Anbinder (History/George Washington Univ.;nbsp;Five Points: The Nineteenth-Century New York City Neighborhood that Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections and Became the World's Most Notorious Slum, 2001, etc.) impressively conveys the sense of a city truly forged by the people who were determined to live and work there. He uses personal storiese.g., by those who made the arduous ocean crossing under horrendous conditionsas well as contemporary maps that illustrate the delineation of neighborhoods by ethnicity, diagrams of the early tenement flats, and charts that record the incredible fluctuating numbers. For example, 950,000 Irish immigrants arrived in New York during the great famine years of the mid-1840s-1850s. Anbinder concentrates on the nitty-gritty details of these difficult early lives in America: their arrival at the immigration and inspection station, harassment by runners who tried to swindle them out of their money and luggage, groupings into neighborhoods and wards, overcrowded living conditions in squalid tenement buildings inhabited by most of the poorest new arrivals, and the kinds of jobs the unskilled gravitated toward, including household servants, manual laborers, street peddlers, and grocers. The author also examines the political proclivities of the newcomerse.g., the support of the crooked Tweed Ring, the Irish menace, and recalcitrant Democrats who kept the vote from African-Americans. On the other hand, the tension between immigrants and nativists led to the rise of the Know Nothing party and the increasing restrictions on immigration, especially against the Chinese. Furthermore, Anbinder gives plenty of room for the stories of the Jews, Italians, African-Americans, Dominicans, and others. An endlessly fascinating kaleidoscope of American history. A fantastic historical resource. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.