The Official Blog of the Urban History Association
This piece is an entry in our Eighth Annual Graduate Student Blogging Contest, “Connections.” by Genna Kane Bostonians grumbled and complained when the Sumner Tunnel closed again in the Summer of 2024, demonstrating the significance of underwater connections to East Boston. The City of Boston annexed East Boston in 1836, but the harbor strained East […]
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It is September, and here at The Metropole that means it is time to publish entries to the Graduate Student Blogging Contest. Now in its eighth year, the contest is intended to encourage students to write pieces for a public-facing, online platform and share their research with a broad audience. Beginning Thursday and extending into […]
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Davida Siwisa James. Hamilton Heights and Sugar Hill: Alexander Hamilton’s Old Harlem Neighborhood Through the Centuries. New York: Fordham University Press, 2024. Reviewed by Kevin McGruder In Hamilton Heights and Sugar Hill: Alexander Hamilton’s Old Harlem Neighborhood Through the Centuries, author Davida Siwisa James uses several individual buildings and collections of buildings, the people who […]
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On August 4, 2020, a massive explosion ripped through the heart of Beirut, Lebanon. While the devastation left by the blast was followed by a series of reconstruction efforts, it has remained difficult to document, map, and support the living heritage of the city, especially regarding its small creative businesses. The Living Heritage Atlas | […]
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Jesse Chanin. Building Power, Breaking Power: The United Teachers of New Orleans, 1965-2008. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2024. Reviewed by Daniel G. Cumming Ten years after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, a Chicago Tribune columnist memorialized the catastrophe with disturbing notes of envy. Though full of chaos, tragedy, and heartbreak, […]
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During the summer of 2016, architectural historians Anne E. Bruder, Susan Hellman, and Catherine W. Zipf came together over their shared interest in documenting the history of The Negro Travelers’ Green Book, more commonly referred to as simply “the Green Book.” As noted in their interview below, a series of conference engagements led to the […]
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If you’ve been to Los Angeles recently and had the opportunity to visit the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), perhaps you were able to drop in on its new exhibit, “Ed Ruscha/Now Then“. Ruscha has long been an observer of the city, especially with regard to its vernacular and commercial architecture. While the […]
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Hey all, it’s our final reminder that the submission window for the Eighth Annual Graduate Student Blogging Contest is still open—through July 12, 2024. We look forward to your submissions about connections, whether literal of figurative, in the historic urban landscape. We are pleased to announce this year’s contest judges: Dr. Andrew Sandoval-Strausz of Pennsylvania […]
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By J. Mark Souther Few things embody the freedom of American life more than mobility, and perhaps no other form of transportation, for better and worse, has defined mobility in the United States like cars. Yet in the era of Jim Crow, mobility for Black families could be dangerous, even deadly; hence the need for […]
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Richard E. Ocejo. Sixty Miles Upriver: Gentrification and Race in a Small American City. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2024. Reviewed by Mario Hernandez Focusing on small cities rather than the large metropolitan areas typically covered in gentrification literature, Richard Ocejo’s Sixty Miles Up River makes significant contributions to the study of gentrification. Beyond location, […]
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