World War One New York (The Book)

I was unprepared for how much I would love Kevin Fitzpatrick's latest guidebook World War I: A Guide to the City's Enduing Ties to the Great War. I shouldn't have been; I love all his books. He finds surprising holes in the publishing universe and fills them. The surprise is always, "There isn't already a book about that?" Well, now there is! Just as his recent Governor's Island book is now indispensable for anyone who wants to visit that beautiful new public space and know what the hell they're looking at, this WWI book will help even the lifelong New Yorker look at the city through new eyes. The past is all around for you to see if you're looking through the right glasses!

The book takes you all over the greater NYC area (including parts of New Jersey and Long Island) to sites related to what used to be called The Great War (America joined the conflict just over a century ago). Quite naturally he leads off with Governor's Island, which was, after all the local military base at the time, and is one of the author's main areas of expertise. Some other places he touches upon in his survey that will be of particular interest to readers of this blog include: Federal Hall National Monument, where Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford made their historic speeches to sell Liberty Bonds; Tin Pan Alley, where patriotic songs were written; Broadway theatres, where patriotic songs were sung (Irving Berlin's "Over There" being the most famous and long lasting; the home of bandleader James Reese Europe, who brought his Harlem musicians to the war zone in uniform to rally the troops; and the Woodlawn Cemetery memorial of Vernon Castle, killed in the war.

Washington Square Park had an entire scale replica of a ship as a recruitment station. Central Park displayed a captured U boat!

My favorite part of the book may be the second half, which details all the WWI monuments and memorials in the city, which I'll now make a note to look out for during my travels hither and yon. Two of them are within spitting distance of my house, which makes for a perfect occasion for me to now do something I meant do a month ago on the actual centennial, but forgot, and that's share photos of them.

One, is the Fourteenth Regiment Memorial, in front of the Armory on Eighth Street, right around the corner from my house. I took this photo this morning on the way home from the laundromat:

And the other is the Brooklyn War Memorial, dedicated to all the Brooklynites who died in the war. (It's unofficial nickname is the "Angel of Death"). It's located right opposite the skating rink in the middle of Prospect Park.

Those and scores of others are featured in the book: their names, their histories, the people who designed them, the people who funded them, photos, and much more! Get yourn here.