Author: Aurora Wallace
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Book Review by: Sonu Chandiram
This book is about the history of New York City as the media and communications capital of the United States, signified by the construction of numerous large buildings starting from the 1830s. The study of such ‘media architecture’ and the people who owned the media organizations that wanted construct the edifices is the focus of this book.
Many large news organizations in the past owned large or tall buildings in New York City. As part of newspaper rivalry, it was the media moguls’ way of asserting their larger presence over their competitors, their influence over politics and economics, and perhaps their unstated power over the common man. It also all made for good advertising potential and a means to increase revenue with larger and more advertisers, and increased circulation.
The author Aurora Wallace points out that by building taller and larger structures “publishers intended to convey permanence, authority and stability over their readers, and to lend much credibility to their enterprises.”
Photos of numerous buildings owned by large newspapers and magazines are shown through the course of this book (dates of photos are in parentheses).
“A picture is worth a thousand words” and in this book there are numerous that tell the stories.
First, there is a photo (taken in the 1830s) of a row of buildings in downtown New York City called Park Row (known more commonly as Newspaper Row because they were close to two major news sources: City Hall as the seat of urban government and Wall Street as the national center for stock-trading.
Then, flipping through the pages, you see photos of the New York Sun building (circa 1914), a design of a new skyscraper for the New York Sun (1891), the New York Herald building (1893), J.C. Cady’s unsuccessful design for the New York Tribune building (no date), the actual New York Tribune building (1875), the first building of The New York Times (1858), the enlarged New York Times building (1889), and the Pulitzer building (1890).
These are followed by a photo of the lobby of The Daily News building with its large globe (1930), a side view of The Daily News building at 220 East 42nd Street (1930), the Daily Mirror building (1929), the Evening Post building (1926), the New York World-Telegram building (no date), the New York Journal-American building (no date), the ultramodern present-day Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle, the International Magazine building (1928), the Hearst building (2007) and the present-day New York Times tower (2008).
I had no idea so many newspapers existed in New York City in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Only a few survive today.
Almost all those photos are of the past, with very few exceptions, because most of those newspapers no longer exist. Currently, only the following large newspapers and magazines own large buildings that are highly visible and known to the average New Yorker: Daily News, Newsweek, New York Times, and Time-Warner. I may have missed a few that do not come to memory right now.
Aurora Wallace is a professor in the department of Media, Culture and Communication at New York University and the author of Newspapers and the Making of a Modern America.
This is a good book on the study of how architecture played a large part in conveying to the public the image of press as a center of power, strength and wealth.
