New York Is Huge. These Books Help Cut It Down to Size.

Dear readers,

I have a sprightly white-haired neighbor who has lived in the garden apartment next door since Lyndon B. Johnson was president, more or less, and most days you will find her out there on her little patch of tulips and concrete, holding court in two languages. (The better gossip, I deeply suspect, is in Polish.)

I love her consistency, and I also love how specific her territory is. Whatever’s going on beyond this block: not her business. Her purview is strictly whatever falls between the co-op, the cosmetic dentist and the mosque. That chic spot on the corner serving “contemporary Americana with a flair for sustainability”? She knew it when it was a French bistro and before that, a deli selling glorious pre-Ozempic piles of kielbasa and goulash.

Which brings me to the picks in this week’s newsletter, both of which zoom in on chunks of urban real estate so finely parsed you could probably cover them with a large tarp. These books, like the lady next door, are living histories: loyal keepers of their own neighborhood flames, and other goulash ghosts of old New York.

—Leah

“February House,” by Sherill Tippins

Nonfiction, 2005