An Architecture Critic’s Street-Level Take on a Restless Metropolis
In “The Intimate City,” Michael Kimmelman takes readers on a series of history-laden strolls through a New York City that never stops changing.
New York City “faced disasters before and it emerged from them stronger,” says the New York Times’s Michael Kimmelman.
Photographer: Spencer Platt/Getty Images North AmericaMichael Kimmelman moved to Manhattan’s Upper West Side because of a piano. The instrument was too big for his old place in Brooklyn, and he wanted to be able to play it without disturbing the neighbors. Though he grew up in Greenwich Village and has lived on other blocks and spent several years in Berlin, moving uptown jostled old memories of how he experienced the area during infrequent visits as a child.
“It is interesting to come back to this neighborhood, because you realize that neighborhoods are things that are constantly evolving,” he said. “They’re made up by the collective idea that people have of each other at a given moment.”