Randol Contreras. The Marvelous Ones: Drugs, Gang Violence, and Resistance in East Los Angeles. Oakland: University of California Press, 2024. By Dianne Violeta Mausfeld East Los Angeles is an unincorporated part of Los Angeles County with a population that is over 95 percent Latino, overwhelmingly Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans. Mexican immigrants settled in this […]
Launched in 2024, Soundscapes N.Y.C. is a podcast about how music created in New York has shaped the history of the city and how throughout its history the city itself has been an incubator for new music. It is a bi-monthly podcast series in which Sarah Lawrence College historian Ryan Purcell, talks with artists, music […]
With 2024 just about in the rear view mirror, The Metropole’s editorial staff wanted to let our readers know that we have three theme months planned for the first half of 2025. Check out our calls below and drop us a line at themetropole@urbanhistory.org if you have a pitch for us! The City and Film […]
Once again, we had a record number of entries in our graduate student blogging contest! Our 2024 theme, “Connection,” inspired submission by twelve students whose work intersects with urban history. Online publications such as The Metropole can provide an outlet for writing that allows for creativity and experimentation, both in content and how information is […]
Editors note: This is our final entry in our theme month on The Latinx City. You can see all other entries for the theme month here. Additionally, readers interested in more on Miami can see other posts on the city published at The Metropole here. By Daniel Richter In 1987, Joan Didion published her book […]
Editor’s note: This is the fourth post in our theme for November, The Latinx City. By Stephanie Rivera-Kumar Philadelphia, one of the oldest cities in the United States, has a vibrant history shaped by immigrant contributions that continue to affect its neighborhoods and economy. In recent years, Latinx immigrants from countries such as the Dominican […]
David J. Goodwin. Midnight Rambles: H. P. Lovecraft in Gotham. New York: Fordham University Press, 2023. Reviewed by Peter C. Baldwin The horror fiction of Howard Phillips Lovecraft, which sends delightful chills down the spines of his many fans, draws its power from its monsters and creepy settings, not from human characters. Lovecraft’s florid prose […]
The Metropole Bookshelf is an opportunity for authors of forthcoming or recently published books to let the UHA community know about their new work in the field. Other entries in the series can be viewed here. By Romeo Guzmán I’m a historian who is weary of origin stories. In presenting Writing the Golden State: the New […]
Editor’s note: This is the third post in our theme for November, The Latinx City. By David Helps Jorge Cruz Cortes was still a teenager when the Los Angeles Police Department arrested him for selling household goods without a license in 1989. The eighteen-year-old from Oaxaca, Mexico had been in L.A. long enough to know […]
Editor’s note: This is the second post in our theme for November, The Latinx City. By Andres Villatoro A friend from graduate school recently visited Chicago for the first time ever to present at a large annual academic conference. As an international student from Santiago, Chile and a lover of cities, I was excited for […]
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