Pictorial books like these are glorious time machines and invaluable primary resources. We are so fortunate that these pictures exist. The prints are crystal clear and detailed in that way only black and white photography can be. There is no greater joy that going down to Manhattan and finding the places photographed and seeing if anything has survived.

This was a good Old whatever book. I had been reading Edith Wharton and really wanted to see the old mansions of the wealthy New Yorkers. I did not see much of this in the book. But I enjoyed the pictures and the text.