Manhattan Phoenix

Oxford University Press, 2022

On a freezing December night, a fire erupted in lower Manhattan. The city’s inhabitants, though accustomed to blazes in a town with so many wood structures, a spotty water supply, and a decentralized fire department, looked on in disbelief at the scale of this one. Philip Hone, a former mayor of New York, wrote in his diary how it “exceeded all description; the progress of the flames, like flashes of lightning, communicated in every direction, and a few minutes sufficed to level the lofty edifices on every side.”  By the time the fire was extinguished, a huge swath of land had been transformed from a thriving business center into the “Burnt District,” an area roughly the same size as was devastated during the September 11th attack.  In the end, nearly 700 buildings were destroyed. So vast was the conflagration that it was immediately and henceforth known as the Great Fire of 1835.

Manhattan Phoenix reveals how New York quickly emerged from the fire and became a global powerhouse in just a quarter of a century. Daniel Levy’s book charts the city’s miraculous growth by examining how the metropolis was shaped by fire and water, land, disease, trade and culture. Within this history he has interwoven the lives of New Yorkers who took part in its transformation. Some you will probably have heard of, like the land baron John Jacob Astor and the Tammany boss William Tweed. Others are less known, as with the Bowery Theatre impresario Thomas Hamblin, the fire chief James Gulick and the African-American restaurateur Thomas Downing. Levy’s book offers the story of a city rising from the ashes to fulfill its destiny as one of the world’s greatest metropolises.

Advance praise for Manhattan Phoenix

“A superb work of urban history that crackles with the heat and smoke of Manhattan’s devastating fires and probes the genius, vision—sometimes villainy—of the men who shaped its destiny during these crucial years. Daniel Levy’s infectious love of his native city infuse every line.”

Tom Sancton, author of The Bettencourt Affair and The Last Baron

“Nineteenth-century New York both embodied America and transcended it. Manhattan Phoenix is a vivid account of the city in the years leading through the Civil War, and Daniel Levy has seamlessly woven a history that reveals how it became a major world center while combating plagues, fires and election fraud. Manhattan Phoenix shows why New York is unique and how it became so.”

Richard Stengel, author of Information Wars and Mandela’s Way

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Reviews for  Manhattan Phoenix

“A sparkling social history of the borough in its adolescence” and “one of the best books about old New York I’ve come across.”

Edward Kosner, The Wall Street Journal

“Levy tells the vivid, engrossing story of the city’s rebirth,” in this “polyphonic social history.”

The National Book Review

“A tale as teeming as the city itself…. Anyone who shares his enthusiasm for America’s most important city will treasure this book, for its good judgement and its many unexpected pleasures.”

The Guardian

Manhattan Phoenix

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