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Author: Michael E. Tolle Publisher: ISBN: 9780615722221 Category : Montgomery County (Pa.) Languages : en Pages : 294
Book Description
In 1950, the classic American downtown of Norristown, Pennsylvania, centered on the six blocks of Main Street, was the bustling commercial heart of central Montgomery County, and had been for over a century. With depression and war in the past, downtown merchants looked forward to an extended period of prosperity. It was not to be. By 1975, downtown's core stood largely shuttered and deteriorating, with 99 storefronts vacant and countless others lost to the wrecking ball, as first shoppers and then the merchants fled Main Street. What Killed Downtown? Was it... The Malls? Commercial wisdom points to the King of Prussia Mall as the prime suspect. But were there accomplices? Municipal Government? The Main Street merchants always believed that the Borough Council was the culprit--and with good reason. The Downtown Merchants themselves? Did the shopholders blind themselves, then step into the firing line, ignoring the threats of a changing world? Or was it something else...something more fundamental? Historian Michael E. Tolle's extensive research into the collapse of downtown Norristown reveals not only the answers to these questions, but also recreates the classic American downtown shopping experience, long an American characteristic, but now largely foreign to anyone below middle age. In so doing, Tolle lays bare the fundamental incompatibility between the urban grid and the automobile, as he recounts how a middle-sized American city struggled -- and failed -- to solve the the issues of traffic flow and parking, issues that are no closer to solution today, regardless of the size of the city.
Author: Michael E. Tolle Publisher: ISBN: 9780615722221 Category : Montgomery County (Pa.) Languages : en Pages : 294
Book Description
In 1950, the classic American downtown of Norristown, Pennsylvania, centered on the six blocks of Main Street, was the bustling commercial heart of central Montgomery County, and had been for over a century. With depression and war in the past, downtown merchants looked forward to an extended period of prosperity. It was not to be. By 1975, downtown's core stood largely shuttered and deteriorating, with 99 storefronts vacant and countless others lost to the wrecking ball, as first shoppers and then the merchants fled Main Street. What Killed Downtown? Was it... The Malls? Commercial wisdom points to the King of Prussia Mall as the prime suspect. But were there accomplices? Municipal Government? The Main Street merchants always believed that the Borough Council was the culprit--and with good reason. The Downtown Merchants themselves? Did the shopholders blind themselves, then step into the firing line, ignoring the threats of a changing world? Or was it something else...something more fundamental? Historian Michael E. Tolle's extensive research into the collapse of downtown Norristown reveals not only the answers to these questions, but also recreates the classic American downtown shopping experience, long an American characteristic, but now largely foreign to anyone below middle age. In so doing, Tolle lays bare the fundamental incompatibility between the urban grid and the automobile, as he recounts how a middle-sized American city struggled -- and failed -- to solve the the issues of traffic flow and parking, issues that are no closer to solution today, regardless of the size of the city.
Author: Chuck Klosterman Publisher: Simon and Schuster ISBN: 1416580654 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 301
Book Description
Now a major film! New York Times bestselling author and “one of America’s top cultural critics” (Entertainment Weekly) Chuck Klosterman’s debut novel brilliantly captures the charm and dread of small-town life. Somewhere in rural North Dakota, there is a fictional town called Owl. They don’t have cable. They don’t really have pop culture, but they do have grain prices and alcoholism. People work hard and then they die. But that’s not nearly as awful as it sounds; in fact, sometimes it’s perfect. Mitch Hrlicka lives in Owl. He plays high school football and worries about his weirdness, or lack thereof. Julia Rabia just moved to Owl. A history teacher, she gets free booze and falls in love with a self-loathing bison farmer. Widower and local conversationalist Horace Jones has resided in Owl for seventy-three years. They all know each other completely, except that they’ve never met. But when a deadly blizzard—based on an actual storm that occurred in 1984—hits the area, their lives are derailed in unexpected and powerful ways. An unpretentious, darkly comedic story of how it feels to exist in a community where local mythology and violent reality are pretty much the same thing, Downtown Owl is “a satisfying character study and strikes a perfect balance between the funny and the profound” (Publishers Weekly).
Author: Troy Taylor Publisher: Arcadia Publishing ISBN: 1614233055 Category : True Crime Languages : en Pages : 103
Book Description
In the company of author Troy Taylor, pull off the trick of coming back alive from some of Chicago's most infamous "one-way rides." Meet the deadly womanizer Johann Hoch, who would propose to a woman within twenty minutes of meeting her and then poison her within a week. Follow "Terrible" Tommy O'Conner as he eluded the gallows for more than fifty years, until the city finally grew "tired of waiting" and dismantled them for the final time. Learn how even flower shops and cathedrals weren't safe from gangland violence, and relive the tragic fire at the Iroquois Theatre, where a "fireproof" curtain was made of cotton and did little to stop the blaze that killed more people than the Great Fire of 1871.
Author: Marlon James Publisher: Riverhead Books ISBN: 1594633940 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 706
Book Description
A tale inspired by the 1976 attempted assassination of Bob Marley spans decades and continents to explore the experiences of journalists, drug dealers, killers, and ghosts against a backdrop of social and political turmoil.
Author: William M. Adler Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA ISBN: 1608192857 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 623
Book Description
In 1914, Joe Hill was convicted of murder in Utah and sentenced to death by firing squad, igniting international controversy. Many believed Hill was innocent, condemned for his association with the Industrial Workers of the World-the radical Wobblies. Now, following four years of intensive investigation, William M. Adler gives us the first full-scale biography of Joe Hill, and presents never before published documentary evidence that comes as close as one can to definitively exonerating him. Joe Hill's gripping tale is set against a brief but electrifying moment in American history, between the century's turn and World War I, when the call for industrial unionism struck a deep chord among disenfranchised workers; when class warfare raged and capitalism was on the run. Hill was the union's preeminent songwriter, and in death, he became organized labor's most venerated martyr, celebrated by Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan, and immortalized in the ballad "I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night." The Man Who Never Died does justice to Joe Hill's extraordinary life and its controversial end. Drawing on extensive new evidence, Adler deconstructs the case against his subject and argues convincingly for the guilt of another man. Reading like a murder mystery, and set against the background of the raw, turn-of-the-century West, this essential American story will make news and expose the roots of critical contemporary issues.
Author: Paul Kropp Publisher: High Interest Publishing Inc. ISBN: 9781897039427 Category : Gangs Languages : en Pages : 120
Book Description
Fifteen-year-old Allie Carson is shot while shopping. Based on the true story of the 2005 Boxing day killing of Jane Kreba in Toronto.
Author: Pete Hamill Publisher: Little, Brown ISBN: 0759512973 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 326
Book Description
In this "beautifully written, sharply observed, and heartfelt" guide to his hometown (New York Times), legendary New York City journalist Pete Hamill leads us on an unforgettable journey through the city he loves. Walking the Manhattan streets he loves, from Times Square to the island’s southern tip, Pete Hamill combines a moving memoir of his own days and nights in new York with a lively and revealing history of the city’s most enduring places and people. “Pete Hamill lovingly captures the vibrant sights, sounds, and smells of Manhattan from Battery Park to midtown, the most important, most exciting stretch of real estate in the world.” --New York Daily News
Author: Alex Kotlowitz Publisher: Anchor ISBN: 0804170916 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 306
Book Description
2020 J. ANTHONY LUKAS PRIZE WINNER From the bestselling author of There Are No Children Here, a richly textured, heartrending portrait of love and death in Chicago's most turbulent neighborhoods. The numbers are staggering: over the past twenty years in Chicago, 14,033 people have been killed and another roughly 60,000 wounded by gunfire. What does that do to the spirit of individuals and community? Drawing on his decades of experience, Alex Kotlowitz set out to chronicle one summer in the city, writing about individuals who have emerged from the violence and whose stories capture the capacity--and the breaking point--of the human heart and soul. The result is a spellbinding collection of deeply intimate profiles that upend what we think we know about gun violence in America. Among others, we meet a man who as a teenager killed a rival gang member and twenty years later is still trying to come to terms with what he's done; a devoted school social worker struggling with her favorite student, who refuses to give evidence in the shooting death of his best friend; the witness to a wrongful police shooting who can't shake what he has seen; and an aging former gang leader who builds a place of refuge for himself and his friends. Applying the close-up, empathic reporting that made There Are No Children Here a modern classic, Kotlowitz offers a piercingly honest portrait of a city in turmoil. These sketches of those left standing will get into your bones. This one summer will stay with you.
Author: Anita Arvast Publisher: Dundurn ISBN: 1459735072 Category : True Crime Languages : en Pages : 177
Book Description
The death of a fifteen-year-old girl caught in the crossfire of “gang warfare” the day after Christmas in downtown Toronto shook the city to its core. A decade later, What Killed Jane Creba takes us through what led to the shooting, compared to what was said and done afterward, to show something far more nuanced than gang rivalries.
Author: William Manchester Publisher: Little, Brown ISBN: 031637072X Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 736
Book Description
William Manchester's epic and definitive account of President John F. Kennedy's assassination--now restored to print in a new paperback edition. As the world still reeled from the tragic and historic events of November 22, 1963, William Manchester set out, at the request of the Kennedy family, to create a detailed, authoritative record of the days immediately preceding and following President John F. Kennedy's death. Through hundreds of interviews, abundant travel and firsthand observation, and with unique access to the proceedings of the Warren Commission, Manchester conducted an exhaustive historical investigation, accumulating forty-five volumes of documents, exhibits, and transcribed tapes. His ultimate objective -- to set down as a whole the national and personal tragedy that was JFK's assassination -- is brilliantly achieved in this galvanizing narrative, a book universally acclaimed as a landmark work of modern history.
Author: Michael E. Tolle
Author: Michael E. Tolle
Author: Chuck Klosterman
Author: Troy Taylor
Author: Marlon James
Author: William M. Adler
Author: Paul Kropp
Author: Pete Hamill
Author: Alex Kotlowitz
Author: Anita Arvast
Author: William Manchester