This Is New York by Miroslav Sasek

Thanks to strategically placed displays in certain bookstore windows, Gothamist picked up Czech artist Miroslav Sasek's illustrated book, This Is New York, and fell in love. His elegant illustrations of the city crisply captured a New York and its dynamism that still rings true over forty years after its publications.

There's a fine site dedicated to the Czech-born Sasek (he worked in Munich but traveled around the world) This is M. Sasek, that's loaded with information. That's where we learned about this "This Is..." books about other cities, like Paris, London, Hong Kong and Venice - plus the other American cities, San Francisco and D.C.. Only This Is New York and This Is San Francisco have been reprinted, but many are at libraries.

Buy This is New York from Amazon.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Chung in Arts & Entertainment on August 27, 2004 1:31 PM

Comments [rss]

me@me.com

yeah, i hated it when all those midwesterners came in an tore down the original penn station! those midwestern bastards!

change sucks.

Anne

Thanks for mentioning the site. New York, San Francisco, Paris and London have all been resissued so far (by Rizzoli) and hopefully if they do well they'll put out the rest of the series - so keep shopping!

Yojimbot

new york is still the greatest! so what if i cant dance when i go to bars...i can still see chuck zito, peregrine falcons and central park all in one lunchtime stroll!

X.O.

I think This is Paris and This is San Francisco were the other part of the re-released trio of books... but This is New York is the best! All his books are amazing in their own way, but his New York love was clearly very deep. My copy is covered in crayon and has a few torn pages but still gets me all misty-eyed.

K. Thor Jensen

That's one of my favorite kid's books! Sasek was an amazing draftsman. I'd love to see the other ones he did. Mayhaps I'll hit up eBay.

Jen

I don't know, the book still is still charming and makes me happy I'm in New York now. But take it as a relic or take it as something that is still applicable today - it's a beautiful read.

This Was New York

The book should be called "This Was New York", becuase virtually all the cool things pointed out in that book are parts of the past now. No short thanks to yuppies from the midwest and other environs infesting this city and genftrifying the heart out of it.