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 enlarge | Author: Clifton Hood
Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $20.00
Buy New: $10.95
You Save: $9.05 (45%)
New (10) Used (10) from $6.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 155126
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1
ISBN: 0801880548
Dewey Decimal Number: 388.428097471
EAN: 9780801880544
ASIN: 0801880548
Publication Date: July 13, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Shipping: International shipping available
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 6-8 of 8 | | « PREV | | |
 Very nicely written. August 25, 2001
2 out of 12 found this review helpful
Hood demonstrates the power of doing ones Homework . Excellent reading.
An Invaluable work for city scholars June 28, 1999
27 out of 29 found this review helpful
In you are looking for a tour guide of New York's vast subway system, or a concise timeline of its construction and equipment, look elsewhere.
What Clifton Hood has produced is a political history of the subway which should be read by every student of New York history and every person who wants to understand better the workings of New York City politics today.
The reader will find such familiar personages as Boss Tweed and Fiorello LaGuardia, but will also read about John F. Hylan, mayor from 1918-1925.
Hylan's is hardly a household name in popular New York history--he is known instead to the relative handful of people who delve into the recesses of Big Apple politics of the early 20th century.
In 722 Miles, Hood places Hylan in his proper place as the man who politicized the NYC transit system and, in so doing, set the stage for the long deterioration of the system which is only now being reversed.
I could quibble with various aspects of Hood's book--perhaps he focuses too much attention on one or another story relatively peripheral to the system's development while treating too lightly other threads. For example, he doesn't visit the influence of the BRT (later BMT) system until it became involved in the subway building contracts of 1913.
Additionally, to address the concerns of an earlier reviewer, there are lapses in editing which are odd in so heavily researched and footnoted a work. For example, at one point (using my hardbound copy as reference), Hood described a laborer's pay on the first subway as being $2.00 or $2.25 PER HOUR, a princely sun at the time, when he clearly meant PER DAY. Elsewhere, in describing the distastrous Malbone Street accident of 1918, he twice specifies that the fully wrecked car was number 109, when it is well known to have been 100--an insignificant detail, perhaps, but one which causes one to wonder what others details might have been mistated.All in all, however, these lapses do not dim Hood's achievement in producing the only modern work of its kind, a compelling and perceptive look at the way New York City politics have interacted with perhaps its most significant public work.
 It leaves me wondering about his research June 16, 1998
6 out of 20 found this review helpful
Hood says that the Dakota Apartment building was so named because of its remote location. Not so. However, we references The New York Herald Tribune, August 1, 1880.I looked and looked but couldnt find the reference.....if it is there, terrific - I would be ecstatic! I was left wondering why the stations were built where they were: Why was there a 14/18/23/28/33 on the East Side (but nothing until 42...? Wht Spring and not Prince (on the IRT)
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