Have 2 copies: 1 is 1949 first edition; 1999 edition

It’s really a nostalgic trip to see New York as E. B. White did. First published in 1948, this essay speaks of White’s love for New York, both the pretty sights and not so pretty aspects. The excitement of the city, glorious in its imperfections, shines through the pages. Clearly, in White’s eyes, it is a wondrous town. His descriptions paint pictures in the mind, and his prediction of airplanes wreaking havoc on tall skyscrapers chills the soul. Especially enjoyable are the two poems that end his essay. Succinct and to the point. ( )

Here is a delightful, insightful, almost prophetic lengthy essay written in 1948 or '49 about the ever-changing, ever-fascinating city that never sleeps. Whole paragraphs could be lifted out, printed in 2010, and accepted as having been written last week. Only the statistics date it.

ETA: Roger Angell, E. B. White's stepson, wrote the introduction to my 1999 edition. He died at the age of 101, in 2022. I re-read the whole thing in May of 2022, and it still captures the essence of the city for me. ( )

Tradução Ruy Castro

Lovely Nostalgic Essay with a Chilling Closing
Review of the Audible Audio edition (2016) of the original essay Here Is New York (1948 Holiday magazine/1949 hardcover) including a 1999 Introduction by Roger Angell

This is primarily a lovely quaint memoir of how New York City was changing in the late 1940s compared to when essayist E.B. White first came to work in the city in the 1920s. You wonder about how he would feel about it in the 2000s if it already seemed chaotic in those years. That all changes towards the end (about 5 minutes before the end in the audio version) when he speculates (in 1948, World War II would have still been a very recent memory) about how "the city...is destructible", "a single flight of planes... can end this island fantasy, burn the towers", and "in the mind of whatever perverted dreamer, might loose the lightning."

The narration by Malcolm Hillgartner was excellent. ( )