His own life as an example of how you can make it in new york city. So buildings to have lives. So by 1930 yorkers are 42nd street with the daily news building chrysler, the Lincoln Building and it is a new new york. With boarding houses and dave r. Ray. But this was the problem today it has grown very tall and they dont have the edge dissertation to support the population that will result with the recent skyscraper revolution. But in the 1920s they build to move people the third avenue subway will not be finished in 20 years but they build the sixth avenue subway. They build the bridge two months after George Washington bridge then the tunnel was finished. That is the first vehicular tunnel of that lankan the entire world and the nose to holland is . I had no idea. I asked the guy in the toll booth he said there is a bust back there i said tusis that . He was a young engineer right out of harvard who got a job and he had an idea that people knew how to build homes there were driving trains into new york city like at penn station but nobody knew how to clean the Carbon Dioxide gases that of the tunnel so they would drive big fans to drive the bad air out. But it would be like a Hurricane Force went so if you go today there are four buildings one is in the river one is out on the jersey side inconspicuous looking they look like venetian blinds you open them in comes the wind. The wins will speeded up then it is taken under ground shot into the ground at the hub cap level then it is sucked out of the building through the ceiling and air is changed every 90 seconds that is every tunnel in the world this bill today the lincoln tunnel, etc. , etc. This is an era of herculean effort. There is the gw in the first bridge to go through washingtons crossing. And a guy i had hardly known about when you pulled away what captures you is the deck but the swiss immigrant knows if you can handle the load but it held one of the most beautiful bridges in the world. He was interviewed at the end of his life but he built every major bridges in new york after that. And his wife said gw was always his baby if he would always bowed his head every time he would pass. So it reminded me of building a medieval cathedral which was a spectacle the when you throw up the frame of the skyscraper where the birds dont like these little manner of there working on the steel frames. It is urban theater people would come with binoculars to watch them. They would call them the sky boys of lots of them were mohawk indians coming from the reservation from the st. Lawrence river and the but commute and they threw up those things and people were claiming that the mohawks are genetically coded to handle flight. That is racist. [laughter] there working in dangerous occupations it is a learned experience. Dont forget if you see the pictures you should see the images but without a safety harness without hard hats. Without boards defer rivet drops it can burn coal to a persons head. They would have one of violent death every 33 hours on the job. We dont die we are killed. Whole lot to at the site of the World Trade Center building another building with the two planes went in to the trade center and i interview them. That is something never to be forgotten but despite the dangers they almost embraced it because they come from the mohawk culture where the women are in charge and run the village but the women are forbidden to touch their work belts and especially one that sits over the mans koch. It is the way to enhance the selfesteem. So they are. So ill look down for those people that are struggling at the bottom. At the greatest harbor in new york city. Which is moving uptown with the fashion center. And i take you to the last part that is hells kitchen. Has been gentrified. There i found when i was doing prohibition i thought you were the biggest things . Delta wire is not is the encyclopedia of new york. And big bill joins up with a guy named Frank Costello enjoyed up with this irishman they used to be called tony the killer. With an opportunity to form the multimilliondollar syndicates to scout for coast guard patrols with an arsenal of lawyers they paid off the police said the u. S. Coast guard in into the government of new york city and one of the big honchos of tammany hall. But historians bread away from crime. There is no documents. Domain is grips. So it is hard to construct. I said to have the papers he said nobody asks for them but we have them. I come the next day i that they delivered a washer and dryer. The first thing i found was a lamp with a cord it was evidence somebody was strangled with it. But there were also revolvers and testimony after testimony and confessions because of the idea udalls squeal on your brothers it doesnt have been. They told everything and your cat fabulous cry reporters. Great reporters and a great documentation to also interviewed the sons of the gangsters as well. And matted becomes one of the major characters in my book. But leslie only two blocks from the garment center. The was always the great white way. The area north of that developed in the 1920s because of technicolor they call led a conspiracy against the night. Set to see them across street at midnight. So because of what happened today in the 20 all the big movie theaters roxy build the theater the largest theater since the fall of rome 5200500 people five stories high 17 shows the day and double features a legitimate theater cannot compete so the movies thrive so they go to the side streets of manhattan the premier is the new york the event making the movie in hollywood but to make them go they have to go today york city. So rockefeller is fantastically interesting and comes to new york fresh is the son of a jewish settler enjoins the marine corps and fights in china and the selling magazines around sprint and falls in love with the owners daughter who was a Minor League Baseball player and he said then you have to work in the bar. It is an empty room in the back room family i could see them and theyre raising hell there would have these parties but they would tear the place up so he decides he walks in the snow by is a projector gets the seats drops the sheet gets secedes from a funeral home and there is a feeling that my. And he shows the films. It is a long story but five years later he is the biggest movie guy in the york city because they could never get enough people in the theaters so you have a prologue he would do that. Claude the answers, you name it. Animals on stage that could be more important than the movie. When the founders of the dolls sell tickets to movies but to theaters and that was roxy. Said one day they give him a microphone is ours to interpret what is going on on stage. Then they have the first trade show on radio. Four years later he founds nbc to put the variety show on the air so begin with the strugglers finally there is a guy who starts off as a hustler in chicago. Pin so he runs the act with the strongest man in the world. And he has been show and the society prevention of cruelty to animals jets and have some idea yeasty into non this mental thing with cheese is below. [laughter] but of course, he comes in and to create the follies. But everybody went to them. Then in 1927 the master of light into treatment hits it big with the play of showboat. It changed American Theater as much as a change radio. The first play where the songs come directly out of the plot. The first play ever to have a mixed cast in to deal seriously with the racial issue. We all know old man river. And the he had five big hits and he transforms American Theater like so many characters is the old sense of the great strength he is the gamble. K market crash he goes down and a lot of others go down with him. But before that happened, new york has one stunning absolutely stunning moment. From washington, dc, comes into new york in 23 and doesnt make and it goes home. And comes back and makes it in scrubby little clubs run by gangsters called the kentucky club. The hustling agent finds him. The agent said everybody hated me. I did nothing his is his term he said they all told me this is the guy that does nigger music. Well, all of a sudden he finds ellington and theres an opening at a place called the cotton club. And its designed by joseph irvin, who designed theaters in new york city. And lincoln does an audition and he is signed up. Problem. He was scheduled to appear the next night in philadelphia. A traveling show. So madden called one of his mob bosses in philadelphia and said pay this guy robinson who runs the show visit. So the gunman pays him a visit and says get bigger or be dead. He says what does he mean . He said sending ellington to new york city, and he says im ready to get back. That night ellington and the bad were playing at the cotton club and new york history changed and the countrys history changedded and ellingtons music goes out to not just the country but the world. And people are comparing him to mozart. He is writhing weight the critics call hot jazz, and the duke says, no im writing negro folk music. And one night, another of my characters, bill paley and his wife walk and the hearing ellington and its electrifying moment. The sign him up and out goes his music to san diego to duluth oklahoma city, and new york starts to transform the whole country. With style, music sound, buildings, the works. Thanks a lot. I appreciate it. [applause] if anyone has any questions, please feel free to come up to the front and speak clearly into the mic. Hello. Hi. Wonderful to hear your fabulous. I would like for you to tell us about the publisher who signed up f. Scott fitzgerald. Oh, yes horace liveright. All of midtown all of new york is moving uptown in the 1920s. The Garment Industry from the Lower East Side up to seventh avenue, and so is the Publishing Industry, and the Publishing Industry needs to be near agents magazines, et cetera. Talent. And a whole series of young publishers comes on the scene and challenge the old guard. Most of the new publishers jewish. Richard simon, meets a guy named schuster. Ben net cerf founded random house young aggressive jewish pressurers and liveright, whose name is not well known today, he is a gambler like ziegfeld. He lost it all in the stock market crash. Its been revised by viking, but liveright had the Publishing Business moved up to sixth avenue above rock center and they buy these brownstones right in the bootlegging section of thing new club section illegal night club section, at any day there would probably be more bootlegs in there than publishers or authors, shy say. And being a gambler like i said, with this sense of strength and weaks in the gambled on writers and published oneill, when oneill is a nothing. Published faulkner. Publishs hemingways first book he publishes classics. He publish trotsky. He publishes drizer and he believe thursday hollywood style advertising. Sherwood anderson says going with liveright was living right. He said you get on the subway and youd see your name up there in the subway. Youd see your name in banners and billboards across new york city. I once gave a talk on this with my publishers in the front, and they dent believe in advertising. So i dont know if i got them too excited about this. Oops wrong tv. Okay. Hi. Im really looking forward to reading your book. Two questions. First is, youre so enthusiastic about your characters that you call them how do you edit because you could go on and on forever. Im a former new yorker. And second if you were having a dinner party, which three of them would you have for dinner because you seem so they seem to alive and theyre so exciting. Two questions. Yeah. I would definitely have horace liveright, and just because it would be such a crazy juxtaposition. And david sarnov who is sober and strong and serious and worried about his rivaly paley, because paley date gentile women and that was wrong, and even though sarnov has a mistress himself. Having sarnov in the room would be great. The guy started as a telegraph boy, winninger errands and taking flowers and candy to marconi. Taking chocolates and sweet all kinds of flowers to his girlfriend, all over the city. Sarnov would bike around the city. Eight years later he is head of rca, and then he is a lucky one. The day before the stock market crashed in 29 he withdraws all his funds. It wasnt financial acumen. Just a hunch. Luck. So they would be interesting. Id have this woman, texasgyn nonguinan and they couldnt close her down and she proved not all women were against prohibition, see is a gutsy woman, she didnt drink or smoke. She was a devout catholic, went home at 4 00 in the morning, stop off at her church go home, get sleep, and with her father and brother count the earningings in the day. She is a sharp businesswoman and reporters like will help and others would come to her for the latest gossip. Everything happened in her salons, she called them. In her night clubs. One of my favorite personalities in the book is jimmy walker. Tilish rip smart, mayor of new york city, brought low by corruption. Not that he robbed the city but he took money from friends to live the kind of life he seemed to have to live, the high life to be in miami to be in havana with great regularity. But he had a great soul. I tried to take his analysis from anecdote into analysis to take his biography from anecdote to analysis, because there hasnt been a good buy agograph on walker. He cared for the mentally ill. Pushed hard for immigration. He is just a terrific character and was funny and really smart. He would bounce around from italian spaghetti dinners to swedish whiskey festivals. One tame he came into a jewish event with a yarmulke on and some screamed at him jimmy circumcision next . And he said no madam, i prefer to wear it off. He was crazy. [laughter] he had a hangover room in city hall. Show up at 12 00. The nighttime mayor. He and texas guinan, that would be the foursome. Wed have a wonderful time. I dont have anyplace to go tonight. I wish they were around. Thank you for that. One more question. Okay. With the topic like this where theres no logical boundaries, would you discuss your research . I didnt answer her question how do you curtail this. You have to stop somewhere, and ill give you an example. Luce, the founder 0 of time magazine, but its kind of an ohio operation. So that had to have started something brand new in new york. This is the idea. You decide who gets on the ark. Youre noah. They had to have been under the thumb of powerful forces that were too oppressive to overcome like the garment workers. You get a mix of that. Im trying to write something very difficult and i dont flow if i pulled it off. My mentor called it holistic history. You go to aooh point of the city. I went to the top of rock center, just is a started my chicago book by going to the top of the hancock center. It is aint intersecting thing. A city is an organism and then you go down to the street level and start to explore. And you explore it on foot. And he had an expression, by living we learn. Stay out of the library first. Get to know the city firsthand. Thats how i found these characters. French shannon, chrysler and essentially what wanted to do was i thought i knew new york. I taught at city university, at the graduate center, 42nd 42nd street. Right in the middle of this thing. But i didnt really know it. I finally found, and i thought, im going to tell a story about new york that everybody thinks they know but dont know. And im getting these wonderful letters from people who are longtime new yorkers lifelong new yorkers who are telling me they are seeing the city in a new way in as any writer knows, when you get a reader that says Something Like that you have gotten them to see something they thought was familiar in a new way you have been somewhat successful and thats how you do it how you start trimming. Thanks. [applause] booktv is on facebook. Look us to get publishing news setted alling updates. Behind the scenes pictures and videosment author information and to talk directly with authors during our live programs. Facebook. Com booktv. Nicholas wapshott is next. He recounts president roosevelts involve in the debate between interventionists and isolationists prior to americas entry into world war ii. This is about 45 minutes. Good afternoon welcome back to lunch and learn. Im david cowen today well larry from Nicholas Wapshott on his book by the spinx. He started his career in newspapers and rose through the ranks of the london times the worlds