The Sustainability Myth: An Interview with Melissa Checker
Interviewed by Katie Uva
Today on the blog, Gotham editor Katie Uva speaks to Melissa Checker about her recent book, The Sustainability Myth: Environmental Gentrification and the Politics of Justice. In it, Checker examines and critiques current frameworks of sustainability in New York, where sustainability and economic development are often seen as goals that are mutually supporting. Checker argues that this belief leads to gentrification, deepens economic inequality, and even winds up worsening environmental conditions in some parts of the city.
Down the Up Staircase: Three Generations of a Harlem Family
Bruce Haynes Interviewed by Tyesha Maddox
Down the Up Staircase: Three Generations of a Harlem Family tells the story of one Harlem family across three generations, connecting its journey to the historical and social forces that transformed Harlem over the past century. Bruce D. Haynes and Syma Solovitch capture the tides of change that pushed blacks forward through the twentieth century — the Great Migration, the Harlem Renaissance, the early civil rights victories, the Black Power and Black Arts movements--as well as the many forces that ravaged black communities, including Haynes's own. As an authority on race and urban communities, Haynes brings unique sociological insights to the American mobility saga and the tenuous nature of status and success among the black middle class.
Rainbow LaGuardia: An Interview With Stephen Petrus and Thierry Gourjon-Bieltvedt
Interviewed by Adam Kocurek
Today on the blog, we talk to Stephen Petrus and Thierry Gourjon-Bielvedt about their project Rainbow LaGuardia, a virtual exhibition that examines what it means to be LGBTQ in academia. In it, viewers can explore dozens of video and audio clips taken of twenty-seven LGBTQ faculty and staff at LaGuardia Community College. In these clips, participants talk about everything from their professional lives as LGBTQ academics to their formative experiences in their youth.
The Neighborhood Manhattan Forgot: Audubon Park and the Families Who Shaped It
Matthew Spady Interviewed by Robert W. Snyder
In northern Manhattan in 1841, the naturalist John James Audubon bought 14 acres of farmland on the banks of the Hudson River and built his family a home far from the crowded downtown streets. Audubon’s country homestead is long gone, but his story launches Matthew Spady’s The Neighborhood Manhattan Forgot: Audubon Park and the Families Who Shaped It.
One Day in New York, 1882: Interview with Filmmaker Arne Peisker
Interviewed by David Huyssen
Today on the blog, David Huyssen speaks with Arne Peisker, a director with the German/American production company, Story House Productions, about his new documentary film, One Day in New York, 1882. The film is part of a series, and in the final stages of production for one of Germany’s major national broadcasters, ZDF.
In Service to the New Nation: An Interview with Robb K. Haberman of The John Jay Papers Project
Interviewed by Helena Yoo Roth
Few political leaders in the revolutionary and early nationals eras were more influential than John Jay (1745-1829). A New Yorker born and bred and a 1765 graduate of the nascent King’s College, this austere lawyer of Huguenot and Dutch descent went on to lead a life marked by continuous service and a steadfast devotion to his family, state, and country. The John Jay Papers Project based at the Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Columbia University has documented Jay’s life through a series of published volumes containing his personal correspondence and public papers.
The House on Henry Street: And Interview with Ellen M. Snyder-Grenier
Interviewed by Marjorie N. Feld
Today on the blog, Margorie N. Feld interviews Ellen M. Snyder-Grenier, author of The House on Henry Street: The Enduring Life of a Lower East Side Settlement. This book moves Snyder-Grenier into Manhattan and the rich history of a settlement house, founded by a dynamic Progressive activist named Lillian Wald, in 1893. Unlike so many of the settlement houses founded in that fascinating historical moment, Henry Street is still very much alive as a social service agency, still helping its Lower East Side neighbors after over a century.
Those Who Know Don’t Say: Interview with Garrett Felber
Interviewed by Kenneth M. Donovan
Today on the blog, Kenneth Donovan interviews Garrett Felber about his recently published book Those Who Know Don’t Say: The Nation of Islam, The Black Freedom Struggle, and the Carceral State. Those Who Know, which reevaluates the civil rights activism and legacy of the Nation of Islam, was shortlisted for the 2020 Museum of African American History Stone Book Award.
The World That Fear Made: Interview with Jason T. Sharples
Interviewed by Madeline Lafuse
Today on the blog, Madeline Lafuse speaks with Jason T. Sharples, author of the recently published The World That Fear Made : Slave Revolts and Conspiracy Scares in Early America, about how the fear of slave conspiracies shaped New York City and early America.
Interview with Douglas J. Flowe on Uncontrollable Blackness: African American Men and Criminality in Jim Crow New York
Interviewed by Willie Mack
African American men in early 20th-century New York City faced social and economic segregation, and a racist criminal justice system punctuated by violence by the police and white citizens. In Uncontrollable Blackness: African American Men and Criminality in Jim Crow New York, Dr. Douglas Flowe interrogates the effects that segregation, crime, and violence had on black men, and how these men were forced to navigate the “crucible of black criminality” in Jim Crow Era New York City in order to survive.
