Nine years ago, when I was out of work as an architect and trying my hand at freelance writing for the firs time, I wrote a book review of a couple NYC guides for The Architect's Newspaper: The Neighborhoods of Queens and the fourth edition of the Guide to New York City Landmarks. Relevant here, of course, is the first, which was published as the second in the "Neighborhoods of New York City" series from Citizens for NYC (now Citizens Committee for New York City) and Yale University Press. That book followed The Neighborhoods of Brooklyn, which was first published in 1998 and received a second edition six years later. As far as I know, books on the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island have not been published – and may never be, given how book series have a way of sputtering out. (I'm reminded of Ada Louise Huxtable's planned guidebooks series to NYC architecture, of which only the first was made before she got busy as the New York Times architecture critic.)

Fittingly, the format of Brooklyn and Queens are the same, with an introduction by historian Kenneth Jackson and alphabetical (not geographical, which would have been my preference) chapters with maps, b/w photos, historical text, and sidebars with neighborhood profiles and facts. Three photo-spreads break up the 45 chapters: the Brooklyn Dodgers, the Brooklyn Bridge, and Prospect Park. (The first reveals how the team's departure to Los Angeles is a wound that won't heal for generations.) Like the Queens edition, which I was reading as I researched my Guide to Contemporary New York City Architecture, I picked up the Brooklyn title to get a better handle on some of neighborhoods traversed in a book of architectural walking tours I'm writing. There are other books that provide more depth on individual neighborhoods, but this one does a great job on covering all of them and therefore fitting them together into one diverse borough. ( )