This book captures architect Sorkin wandering through lower Manhattan, where even the most banal-seeming sights send the author into casually fascinating digressions about urban planning, the history behind New Yorks grid, stoops and parks. After looking at the city through this amblers eyes, youll never look at a tenement building - or a stairwell - the same way again.
Time Out, New York
In his delightful book, Michael Sorkin writes about New York from a flaneur's perspective. Focusing on a 20-minute walk from his apartment to his studio, the author - one of architectures most consistent and consistently interesting critical voices - meanders through architecture, urbanism, sociology, politics and history . . . Quirky, erudite and occasionally frustrating in its movement between the personal, the political and the physical, every city should have its Michael Sorkin.
Financial Times
The trove of thumbnail sketches and obscure facts is augmented with fascinating ruminations about the socio-political ins and outs of the business of construction and urban renewal in New York City, the intricate socioeconomic consequences that result, and the ethical ramifications of these undertakings.
James Sclavunos, The Times
He bemoans gentrification and mobile phone use in enclosed spaces. He resents pedestrians who stroll three abreast. He thinks up plans to rid the streets of garbage and "green" the top of buildings. Michael Sorkin is a New Yorker.
Time Out
a wry and illuminating provocation: New York seen from the perspective of the author's daily stroll from his Greenwich Village apartment through Washington Square to his office in Tribeca. Along the way enjoy reflections on the privatization of public space, the uses and abuses of preservation, the ambiguous legacy of modernism - ultimately, all the strands of urban life.
San Francisco Chronicle
Michael Sorkins a congenial, sometimes irascible guide. Ever the Manhattanite, he lambastes oblivious SUV drivers, callous landlords and Disneyfied urban environments (an undying spark for his ire), but he is also aware of his own foibles, including his tendency to lapse into high ethical mode. Sorkins musings - outrages and enthusiasms alike - converge around his sensitivity to the restless yet productive tension between the city's role as both public sphere and commercial marketplace, and the intermingled chances city life offers for making meaning and making money.
The Nation
His observations about buildings, parks, urban design, and city planning should inspire anyone who cares about the future of cities.
Inga Saffron, Philadelphia Inquirer
Sorkin's tone is conversational and intimate, which makes for an easy read and personalizes the books big-picture issues . . . lively and thought-provoking
Metropolis
whats most engaging about Sorkins text are the personal anecdotes. New Yorkers will surely sympathize with a long rant against his landlord, the frustrations of navigating sidewalks littered with people blindly texting . . . Lacking illustrations, the book is nevertheless highly visual, thanks to Sorkins colorful stories and precise descriptions of the journey.
The Architects Newspaper
If you want an introduction to what has been said and thought about the city around the world, and also what has been built and unbuilt as a result of all this theorising, this is probably as good a guide as can be had. Follow Sorkin on his walk, and you will certainly be better informed and perhaps a bit wiser as well.
Joseph Rykwert, Architects Journal
Cinematic like Robert Altman and learned like Jane Jacobs, the books experiential account takes on architectural significance.
RIBA Journal
No one writes better about architecture and urbanism in the United States than Sorkin. He is a tireless campaigner against cliché . . . perhaps his most personal book to date.
Blueprint
Delightful and informative, this romp will please anyone with affection for the big city.
Publishers Weekly
an engrossing and thoughtful read
Stride Magazine
provides a wide-ranging field of ideas and topics to make stimulating and enjoyable holiday reading
Property Week
I am glad Sorkin doesn't take the subway: this is the most brilliant epitome of Manhattan ever written.
Mike Davis
Not since the great Jane Jacobs has there been a book this good about the day-to-day life of New York. Sorkin writes like an American Montaigne, riffing freely off his personal experience (sometimes happy, sometimes frustrating) to arrive at general insights about New York and about cities everywhere.
Robert Campbell, Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic for the Boston Globe
Twenty Minutes in Manhattan delivers a far from mundane cache of urban insights.
Azure magazine
Michael Sorkin comes from a neighborhood of great urbanists - Lewis Mumford, Jane Jacobs, Grace Paley - and he belongs in their company. A short walk with him through the West Village turns into an adventure. He is one of the smartest and most original people writing about New York and about city life today.
Marshall Berman, author of On The Town: One Hundred Years of Spectacle in Times Square and co-editor of New York Calling
This walk through the city shows Michael Sorkin at his witty and knowledgeable best. From the stairs of his small apartment house to the pyramids of Chichen Itza, from Local Law 45 to the motto of the Hanseatic League, Sorkin takes us on a journey through eras and worlds in the space of just 15 blocks. Better to spend 20 minutes with him than 24 hours with a standard tourist guide!
Sharon Zukin, author of Naked City