"New York 1880 turns back to the Gilded Age - from 1865 to 1890 - the explosive period of growth between the Civil War and the onset of American internationalism."--BOOK JACKET. "New York 1880 reveals a city in the throes of dramatic technological change. Vast infrastructure projects not only brought the telephone, electric light, and elevator to everyday use, but also installed new systems of water supply and rapid transit that together allowed the city to grow both out and up. Massive projects such as Central Park, the Brooklyn Bridge, and Grand Central Depot were completed, giving a new scale and grandeur to the city."--BOOK JACKET. "For the very rich, there were houses such as private citizens in America had never before built for themselves; for the growing middle class, comfortable apartments and suburban houses set new standards for the world; and for the poor, there were tenements but also model dwellings that promised a better future."--BOOK JACKET. "New York 1880 definitively presents the buildings and master plans that transformed New York from a harbor town into a world-class metropolis. The book is generously illustrated with over 1,200 archival photographs that show the city as it was; through a broad range of primary sources - critics and writers, architects, planners, and government officials - New York City tells its own complex story."--BOOK JACKET.