Book Review 12-29-02
The Epic of New York City

by Edward Robb Ellis (d. 1998) published 1966

History books are always a risk when you're looking for something new to read. We are all a little scarred by our early experiences with badly-written, confusing textbooks that focused on dates and wars. History in itself, the real story of what people have done and said and believed, can be endlessly fascinating. But so many books leave out all the juice---the scandal, the screw-ups, the greed, the surprising human nobility--of real history.

I stumbled across the Edward Robb Ellis' The Epic of New York City while doing research for an upcoming book I was recently commissioned to write. (Ironically, it's a history textbook). I was only looking for a bit of information about the early 20th century, but Ellis sucked me in to reading the whole 600-page opus. He was a writer who knew something about juice.

His years on the complexly-named New York World Telegram-Sun undoubtedly had something to do with it, because he writes with a journalist's flair. He was a journalist of the old school, unafraid to call a man a bum, scoundrel, rake, or fool. And very rarely, a hero.

His book begins in April of 1524, when Giovanni de Verrazano first sighted the island of Manhattan. From there, Ellis takes his readers on a breakneck tour of the island's history, calmly listing the various crooked deals, scams, panics, and disasters that destroyed its citizens (beginning with the Native Americans) or made them rich.

Occasionally, he will interrupt a straightforward account of an event like the Civil War to tell the kind of stories journalists love, like that of Captain William R. Webb.Webb, a Confederate soldier, was incarcerated on New York's Governor's Island on April 6, 1865, when he escaped his prison, swam the Lower Bay to Manhattan, and climbed over the seawall. A passerby asked him how he had gotten wet, wherupon Webb, who was presumably a little dazed or stupid, informed him that he was an escaped Confederate. The New Yorker calmly regarded the dripping man in his Confederate grays, laughed, and went about his business. Webb wandered the city for days, with no one paying him any attention. The war was as good as won, and New York had already moved on to more important business.

Ellis displays an endearing old-fashioned hatred of the rich, especially John J. Astor and the Rockefellers, describing their depredations, bribing of government officials, and callous disregard for their employees with disgust. But he's not especially sparing of the common man, describing the conditions of the Irish, blacks, and other immigrants with a combination of pity and revulsion that rings true--an understanding that they did not create all of their circumstances with a disapproval of how low they let it bring them down. He manages to paint vivid pictures of the rioting and gang warfare that plagued New York in the 19th century without reveling in the carnage.

A few heroes shine in Ellis' account--most notably Fiorello LaGuardia and Woodrow Wilson. But he doesn't shy away from examining their failures and weaknesses, or being upfront about their failed family lives or lack of charisma.

The book has its flaws. Parts of it seem fragmented and incomplete, and a few of the stories seem a bit anecdotal, and perhaps not verified by investigation. The book covers so much and moves so fast that the reader can feel exhausted, lost in the torrent of names and dates, not sure what year is being described. The sections on Tammany Hall are especially difficult, and it becomes hard to keep track of all the scandals and changes in leadership.

But considering this book is nearly 40 years old, it has held up remarkably well, and remains a great read for those who like their history presented straightforwardly, honestly, and through the eyes of a writer unafraid to tell you a great story.

More about Ellis here