Building 42nd Street — A Chronicle

There are three great streets in Manhattan: Broadway, Fifth Avenue, and 42nd Street. Carol Herselle Krinsky will speak about the last of these, highlighting stories featured in her new, free, online book, Building 42nd Street: A Chronicle. Her in-person talk will take us from colonial times to the present, touching on nineteenth-century structures such as the Egyptian Revival reservoir and Crystal Palace, early versions of Grand Central, modest and lavish hotels, and commercial buildings from skyscrapers to bonbon shops. Among the vast urban array of 42nd Street, Professor Krinsky will illustrate tenements, theaters, transportation facilities, lobster palaces and cafeterias, automats, a peep show, lost churches, and a private club. Of course she'll include the greatest public library in the Americas.