Heaven, in a perfect marriage of engineering and New York City.

Two of my very favorite things in the world are engineering (in a general sense, although I'm also very fond of engineers) and New York City. So when I saw the oversized book titled New York Rises, you know I was all over that.

It's a book of photographs taken by a man named Eugene de Salignac, who was not a famous or artiste photographer, but who worked for the New York City Department of Bridges during the first few decades of the twentieth century. Culled from a collection of twenty thousand eight-by-ten-inch glass negatives that had been sitting around in the basement of New York's Municipal Archives, this is a collection of photos of bridge-building, building building (the Municipal Building, to be exact), city inspectors doing their measuring and inspecting work, accident scenes, and city residents and workers during the Depression.

It's fantastic, absolutely fantastic. The photograph of men just starting excavation for a subway on Delancey Street was taken in 1908; in 2009, can you imagine starting a major subway building job with three or four guys just digging a big hole on the side of the street? And to give you an idea of the mettle of the man we're dealing with here, consider that some of his shots taken from the top of the Brooklyn Bridge were taken when he was 72 years old:

"One year from reluctant retirement, he climbed to the top of the tower holding an eight-by-ten-inch glass-plate camera and at least six sheets of glass. He probably had an assistant to help him with the equipment, which must have weighed about fifty pounds, but he still had to climb the towers himself. There is only one way to get to the top of those towers: to walk up the two-foot-wide cable from the roadway to the tower, 380 feet above the river." (p. 18.)

Get this book. It can be read in an hour, and it will leave you thinking about the beauty of building things for days.

Comments

[LynneW]

CR, this book looks gorgeous! I'm scribbling out an order card for the library right now.

And I admit to a sneaking fascination with all things engineering as well ... sneaking, because although almost every male in my family for 3 generations has been in that field, and I was encouraged to be the first female engineer in the family, I. Don't. Do. Math. LOL

By the way, we just received a donation for a memorial book on airplanes. Do you have a suggestion? Something similar to this - either a history, or a work examining a specific type of plane, or something? Most of what I've seen is outdated, or for kids.

We have a small local airport here, so anything on soaring or gliders would work, too. Unfortunately my searches have only turned up model planes or paper ones when I try those terms.

[Citizen Reader]

Hi, Lynne:
It is a gorgeous book. My only complaint is that it could have been longer--especially once I read that they had 20,000 plates to pick from. I could have looked at a lot more of this guy's pictures!

Hm, book on airplanes. Have you considered the classics "Stick and Rudder" or "America from the Air: An Aviator's Story" by Wolfgang Langewiesche? They're not really picture books per se but I gather from aviation types that Wolfgang's kind of a legend. (His son, one of my favorite writers, William Langewiesche, is also the author of the aviation classic "Inside the Sky: Meditations on Flight.") Or what about some picture books or biographies involving Chuck Yeager and his breaking of the sound (my brother has read everything he can by and about Chuck and has really enjoyed those books). I'll look into illustrated adult books about planes and get back to you, too.

[Citizen Reader]

The above should read "breaking of the sound barrier." Evidently I don't do math or english!
In addition to not doing math, Lynne, my operating principle has always been "close enough." So as much as I may have wanted to be an engineer, anyone with that philosophy should probably stay away from, you know, building bridges and stuff. :)