“ The greatest university of all is a collection of books."
— Thomas Carlyle

Over the years, numerous clients, students, and New York aficionados have requested a list of recommended New York City books. This list has my personal imprint. I recommend (and own) all of the books listed and have found them to be valuable for my own research. Hopefully, the reader will find them useful as well.

The Tour Guides and Students section is a much more extensive list that should prove useful for New York City research. While extensive, the list is in no way complete.

Most of the books are fairly readily available in new and used bookstores. Nearly all of the books on these lists are available via the book vendor, Amazon.com. In some cases, there are exceptional books that are out-of-print and are sometimes difficult to find. These books are included, as I feel that for special studies they merit the extra effort to include them in your personal library.

For clarification, the stars represent my personal (and not altogether foolproof) evaluations (on a scale of 1-5 stars). The number of stars assigned will often, but not always, correlate to the Amazon rating system.

Access New York City
Wurman / Access Press
Handy general reference for travelers. Arranged by neighborhood and color-coded to indicate sights, shops, restaurants, and hotels. (A good Manhattan guidebook.)

The Best Things to Do in New York City: 1001 Ideas
Caitlin Leffel / Jacob Lehman
Eat at America's very first pizzeria, or enjoy soul food at M & G Diner. Shop where sorcerers shop, or visit a Tibetan Museum. Go surfing out at Rockaway Beach, or relax in a Russian bath in the East Village. This very comprehensive book is organized by theme—including Eating and Drinking, 24-hour New York, Shopping and Spending, Arts and Culture, Views and Sites, the Great Outdoors, and Classic New York—and packed with detailed, helpful indexes organized by neighborhood and by category.

Blue Guide New York
von Pressetin Wright; Miller and Seitz / W. W. Norton
Excellent information, but very copy dense. Perhaps better for armchair travelers or for Tour Guides for general research. (Includes all five boroughs.)

Knopf Guide New York
Knopf Guides, et al /Knopf
This book provides more information than most guides. Handsomely illustrated with over 1,000 drawings, paintings, photographs, and maps — most in full color. A Manhattan guidebook that’s fun to use.

Michelin Green Guide New York City
Michelin Travel Publications
An old standby. This is a very serviceable Manhattan book. Easy to carry.

New York: Eyewitness Travel Guides
DK Publishing
An excellent guide for visitors with beautiful color illustrations, excellent maps, and quality information about everything from the subway to restaurants to popular and unusual sites in the City.

Zagat Survey: New York City Restaurants
Gathje & Diuguid, Editors
The reviews in this popular restaurant review guide are generated by restaurant patrons, rather than by professional food critics. The book is portable and easy to use and can often provide far better insight into restaurants than other journals. Useful for making restaurant decisions.

Flashmaps: New York
Fodor's
Packed with easy-to-read, full-color themed maps that will help you find nearly everything a tourist might need.

Manhattan, Block by Block: A Street Atlas
Tauranac / Tauranac Maps
A valuable portable street atlas which identifies streets, buildings, and sites.

New York City Bus & Subway Maps
NYC Subway Maps (designed by John Tauranac of Tauranac Maps)
Available for FREE at all subway stations. Just ask the clerk in the booth. Also New York City Subway and Bus Maps are available at the New York Transit Museum in Grand Central Terminal located at Park Avenue at 42nd Street. The New York Transit Museum is just off the Main Concourse, near the Station Master's Office. Racks of FREE Bus and Subway Maps are on display for easy customer access.

New York City 5 Borough Pocket Atlas
Hagstrom Map Company / Spiral Edition
Good if you are traveling outside of Manhattan on a discovery journey

New York City: That Vandam Book
Van Dam / Van Dam Press
Guide breaks Manhattan into 3 sections (Downtown, Midtown, and Uptown) — treated as walkable neighborhoods. Museums, restaurants, hotels, shops, and other attractions are listed as one would find them if strolling down the street. Includes three laminated, foldout, pop-up maps (one for each neighborhood) attached to the back cover.

New York: A Guide to the Metropolis
Wolfe / McGraw-Hill
My longstanding personal favorite! No one has done it better. Reading Gerard Wolfe's book was the beginning of my love affair with New York City. My affections for the City and for Gerard's book have never waned. I still love them both.

New York: 15 Walking Tours / An Architectural Guide to the Metropolis
Wolfe / McGraw-Hill
My other favorite Walking Tour Guidebook! This newer version has been published with some quality updates and some deleted chapters from Gerard Wolfes first book, A guide to the Metropolis. How to choose? Such a dilemma! Both books include great commentary, excellent photographs, and superb maps.

AIA Guide to New York City
Willensky & White / Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Press
Excellent resource, but not necessarily for the first-time visitor.

Beat Generation in New York: A Walking Tour of Jack Kerouac's City
Morgan / City Lights
Eight walking tours, ranging from the Columbia University area, where Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg first met as students in the 1940s, to the East Village, where now a demolished tenement known as Paradise Alley, on East 11th Street, furnished a key setting for Kerouac's novel "The Subterraneans."

Eyewitness Kids' Travel Guides: New York
Maynard / DK Publishing
This colorful guidebook includes photographs, listings, and key facts about New York City.

Greenwich Village: A Guide to America's Legendary Left Bank
Stonehill / Universe Books
Beautifully illustrated guide to America's most beloved bohemia: Greenwich Village. Jaunty and informative, this book includes four walking tours that illuminate the lives and times of some of America's most famous artists and writers. An exquisite jewel of a book and a great gift. Author, Judith Stonehill, was longtime President of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation.

Greenwich Village & How it Got that Way
Miller / Crown
Delightful Greenwich Village history and commentary. Maps focusing on different parts of Greenwich Village, with mini-walking tours, are used as a very effective organization tool.

Literary New York : A History and Guide
Edmiston & Cirino / Peregrine Smith
Excellent commentary plus related walking tours. This book has never been surpassed.

The Lower East Side Remembered & Revisited: History and Guide to a Legendary New York Neighborhood
Mendelsohn / Lower East Side Press
Superb book with quality research. A “must” for Lower East Side research.

My New York (New Anniversary Edition)
Little Brown & Company
A young New Yorker guides you to all of her favorite places. Sumptuously illustrated with paintings by a noted American folk artist, the city's pleasures almost burst off the page. Ride your own horse on Central Park's Carousel, see the spectacular Fourth of July fireworks explode over the New York City skyline, and much, much more. Oversized fold-out pages of the Empire State Building, the dinosaurs at the Museum of Natural History, the Chrysler Building, and Rockefeller Center at Christmastime add to the fun, while a map in the front and fun facts in the back make a helpful guide.

The Movie Lovers' Guide to New York: The Ultimate Guide to Movie New York-An Inside Look at over 240 Attractions from Motion Picture Past and Present
Alleman / Perennial
Great material with concise entries and easy-to-read maps.

New York's 50 Best Places to Take Children, 2nd Edition
Ishak / Universe Books
Great for children from 2-12. This guide covers the best attractions the Big Apple has to offer a child from the kid's point of view. Included are the usual favorites such as the American Museum of Natural History and the Empire State Building plus some unusual and unusual sites such as the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory, a doll hospital, and the best tours for kids.

New York City Starwalks
Horwitz / St. Martin's Press
Self-described as a “Guide to the Exclusive Haunts, Habitats, and Havens of the Big Apple’s Happening Celebs,” this book is a bit out-of-date. Still, much of its information is current.

New York Walks: The 92nd Street Y (Henry Holt Walks Series)
Plotch & Morse, eds. / Holt
Five of the 92nd Street Y's most popular walking tours, such as Literary Greenwich Village, Central Park West, and the Ghosts of Wall Street.

Nosh New York: The Food Lover's Guide to New York City's Most Delicious Neighborhoods
Alperson / Griffin
New book from the Nosh Walks maven, Myra Alperson. This is the best ethnic food guide to New York City I have seen. Walk, eat, and enjoy!

Permanent New Yorkers: A Biographical Guide to the Cemeteries of New York
Culbertson & Randall / Chelsea Green
New York Cemeteries. Valuable resource with entertaining and enlightening commentary. Maps can be confusing.

Six Heritage Tours of the Lower East Side
Limmer / New York University Press
Well-edited text, which provides a consistent “voice” to the various walks by different Tour Guides. Good information and maps.

Sacred Havens, A Guide to Manhattan's Spiritual Places
Cook / Herder & Herder
A thoughtful and sensitive collection of religious and spiritual sites in Manhattan with clear commentary and good general information. A good walking guide.

Stepping Out: Nine Walks through NYC's Gay & Lesbian Past
Hurewitz / Owl (Holt)
This entertaining book includes nine walking tours that celebrate gay culture, history, and gossip. View New York in a different light.

Storied City: A Children's Book Guide to New York City
Marcus / Dutton
This book includes 20 walking tours of New York City based on children's literature with emphasis on history, characters, authors, anecdotes, quotations, and often parts of the specific stories from children's books. Well illustrated with maps, photographs, and book art. The author, Leonard S. Marcus, is a renowned Children’s Book critic, historian, and New Yorker.

Terra Cotta... Don't Take It For Granite: 3 Walks in New York City Neighborhoods
Friends of Terra Cotta
A fascinating way to view the built environment – by examining buildings which feature architectural terra cotta as a building material. Author, Susan Tunick, is the founder of the Friends of Terra Cotta.

The Streets Where They Lived - A Walking Guide to the Residences of Famous New Yorkers
Plumb / MarLor Press
A simple volume with brief walks and descriptions of locations associated with noted New Yorkers such as Irving Berlin, John Lennon, Noel Coward, Rudolph Valentino, Charlie “Bird” Parker, and many others.

Touring the Flatiron (Walks in 4 Historic Neighborhoods)
Mendelsohn / NY Landmarks Conservancy
From the elite Victorian department stores of “Ladies Mile” to the early skyscrapers of Madison Square; from the elegant Greek Revival rowhouses of Chelsea to the mansions of Gramercy Park; discover four neighborhoods along the axis of 23rd Street. Recommended.

Touring Historic Harlem: 4 Walks in Northern Manhattan
Dolkart & Sorin / NY Landmarks Conservancy
Rich with quality research tracing the history of Harlem as a black metropolis. Excellent and accessible information about often-overlooked people, history, and architecture. The section on the historic David King Houses, or “Striver’s Row” is exceptional.

Touring Lower Manhattan: 3 Walks in New York's Historic Downtown
Dolkart & Wheeler / City and Company
Quality guide to this historically rich neighborhood.

Touring the Upper East Side: Walks in Five Historic Districts
Dolkart / NY Landmarks Conservancy
Andrew Dolkart’s research and writing are consistently excellent. A great resource.