Main entry:

Fenske, Gail.

Title & Author:

The skyscraper and the city : the Woolworth Building and the making of modern New York / Gail Fenske.

Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2008.

Description:

xii, 400 pages, 12 pages of plates : illustrations (some color), maps ; 29 cm

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 373-379) and index.
Woolworth's skyscraper -- Woolworth, modernity, and the city -- Gilbert's beaux-arts skyscrapers -- Designing the Woolworth building -- A record-breaking feat of modern construction -- The skyscraper as a "city" -- The Woolworth building and modern New York -- Appendix 1 : F.W. Woolworth and company stores, 1910 -- Appendix 2 : F.W. Woolworth company stores, 1912.

Summary:

"Gail Fenske shows here that the Woolworth Building's multiplicity of meanings reflected the cultural contradictions that defined New York City's modernity. For Frank Woolworth - founder of the famous five-and-dime store chain - the building served as a towering trademark; for advocates of the City Beautiful movement it suggested a majestic hotel de ville; for technological enthusiasts it represented the boldest of experiments in vertical construction; and for tenants it provided an evocative setting for high-style consumption. Tourists, meanwhile, experienced a spectacular sightseeing destination, and avant-garde artists discovered a twentieth-century future. In emphasizing this multifaceted significance, Fenske illuminates the process of conceiving, financing, and constructing skyscrapers as well as the mass phenomena of consumerism, marketing, news media, and urban spectatorship that surround them."--Jacket.

Resources:
Table of contents
Table of contents
Table of contents
Book review (H-Net)
Contributor biographical information
Publisher description
Table of contents only
Contributor biographical information
Publisher description

ISBN:

9780226241418 (cloth ; alk. paper)
0226241416 (cloth ; alk. paper)
1878271466
9781878271464
1878271458
9781878271457

Subject:

Gilbert, Cass, 1859-1934.
Woolworth, Frank Winfield, 1852-1919.
Woolworth, Frank W.
Woolworth Building (New York, N.Y.)
Architecture, Gothic Influence.
Architecture and society New York (State) New York History 20th century.
Architecture gothique Influence.
Architecture et société New York (État) New York Histoire 20e siècle.
Architecture and society.
Buildings.
Hochhaus
Architektur
New York (N.Y.) Buildings, structures, etc.
New York (State) New York.
Woolworth Building
New York, NY
New York <NY> Woolworth Building.
Manhattan (New York, N.Y.) Buildings, structures, etc.

Form/genre:

History.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 257884
Call No.: BIB 188435
Status: Available