New York by Sunlight and Gaslight: A Work Descriptive of the Great American Metropolis

This classic 1882 work is a valentine to the Big Apple… from the time before it earned that moniker. With the affectionate touch that only a New Yorker by choice can muster, journalist James Dabney McCabe, a native of Virginia, explores the history of the metropolis, strangers in New York, the secret of the city’s capacity for generating wealth, a tour of busy New York harbor, thoughts on Boss Tweed, Broadway theaters of the day, the various classes of society, the city’s famous parks and avenues, Wall Street, Christmas in New York (famous even then), the NYPD and prisons, the tenements, and much, much more, including–perhaps most intriguing, in retrospect– what New York will be fifty years hence (or by 1932). Chock full of beautifully observed details about the sights, people, and culture of the great American city, this guidebook, an artifact of a city lost in time, will enthrall readers of travel literature and lovers of New York–of any era. American writer JAMES DABNEY McCABE (1842-1883) is also the author of Paris by Gaslight, Pathways of the Holy Land, and Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made.