In 1835, a merchant named Gabriel Disosway marveled at a great fire enveloping New York City, commenting on how it "spread more and more vividly from the fiery arena, rendering every object, far and wide, minutely discernible—the lower bay and its Islands, with the shores of Long Island and New Jersey." The conflagration Disosway witnessed devastated a large swath of lower Manhattan, clearing roughly the same number of acres as the World Trade Center bombing.

Join author Daniel S. Levy for an exploration of how modern New York emerged after that devastating fire—a catastrophe that revealed how truly unprepared and haphazardly organized the city was—to become a world-class metropolis merely a quarter of a century later.

Levy discusses Manhattan's almost miraculous growth and rebirth as he interweaves the lives of various New Yorkers who took part in the city's transformation. Some are well known, such as the land baron John Jacob Astor and Mayor Fernando Wood. Others less so, as with the African American oysterman Thomas Downing and the Bowery Theatre’s impresario Thomas Hamblin. Levy also asserts that the resurgence also owed much to visionaries such as Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, who designed Central Park, creating the refuge that it remains to this day.

Levy writes for Life, Time, and Time-Life Books and for National Geographic Books. His book Manhattan Phoenix: The Great Fire of 1835 and the Emergence of Modern New York (Oxford University Press) is available for purchase.

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• Purchase your copy of Manhattan Phoenix: The Great Fire of 1835 and the Emergence of Modern New York by Daniel S. Levy here.
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