We used this book as our main guide for planning our first trip to NYC. We were REALLY disappointed with most of the shops that were recommended, and almost equally disappointed with the restaurants. In addition, some of the attractions rated "Not Worth It" were actually pretty cool -- specifically Mme. Tussaud's Wax Museum! I guess this book is pretty good for helping one get oriented and to figure out "what's out there", but I'd definitely take its recommendations with a big grain of salt, and leave myself open to trying things that appeal to me, even if this book recommends against them. (I must add that this was all very disappointing, given the good reputation that Frommer's enjoys as a reputable travel guide...)

Frommers still tends to somewhat gloss over things, but they've definitely gotten much more detailed since the old days. One of the best features is that they've completely embraced the Internet, providing web site and e-mail addresses for most things.

There's always been a rivalry between Fodors and Frommers. In this case, Frommers is pulling ahead.

Mr. Luftglass has been fishing the NJ coastal waterways longer than I've been alive. Found within these pages are many tips that will help you catch fish on various NJ waterways.

However the book was that was written, essentially by his own admission, while Manny had nothing else to do spending a winter down in Florida. There is too much direct transcription from notebooks or from phone calls to tackle shops rather than current research on a particular area. "I tried calling all the shops in the area, but they were closed. So from my notes I see that ....". Some pages are nothing other than ramblings that would be better suited to a Friday column hyping up fisherman for the weekend party boat business.

If you are a collector of random bits of advice on fishing NJ estuaries, this book will in fact provide some information that you probably didn't have before. It will give you a jump start on searching out a new area, and a few ideas on fishing for specific species. Don't expect a comprehensive guide to any particular area. You'll have to get out and explore. Perhaps that's what the author had in mind anyway.

Manny knows Round Valley Reservoir better than most. He includes practical "how-to" information on techniques and presentation. Read this book, and you'll have more than enough insight to get started.

I own the unofficial Mullica River Website. I purchased this book in hopes of finding answers to the most common questions thay may arise when you visit the Mullica - i.e. What is the history with the abandoned house at the end of the river? or Who designed the Cuts? I didn't find these answers, rendering the book almost useless to me. It was full of chatter about people that really had very little to do with the Mullica River at all! There were a few useful sections about the British running the river ages ago, but still found the book to be difficult reading. The book was copyrighted originally in 1945, so don't plan on seeing recent history in the book (or propper grammer for that matter). It was REVISED (one page to be exact) in 1963.

Worth the money? Not for me. It now sits on a bookshelf collecting dust. Perhaps at my tag sale next year.

Rob Blanda

I read this book in 1975 and again in 2002. It was like slipping into an old, soft woolen shirt I love to wear on cold winter evenings; it wraps around you like an old friend. Beck does an excellent job introducing us to the "Down Jersey" folk who lived along the Mullica River in simpler times; Charlie Weber, the last salt hay farmer who.."rolls mosquitoes off his sun-armored arms as if he were rolling down his sleeves"; Snapper Cobb,.. "for whom big days are marked by turtles and herring in the tide; Aunt Hattie Ford, who ran an old-fashioned grocery store where locals gathered around a comforting pot belly stove to exchange news and keep company, and where Beck was accepted as a native; and Constant Ford, who would "tramp across the old fields in search of bits of glass, old bricks, and cellar holes, seeking traces of his youth". Like an old friend of ours, Beck invites us along with him as he pokes around in all the hamlets that have held their own since the country was first settled; Lower Bank, Herman City, Green Bank, Crowleytown, Bulltown, and Pleasant Mills. He also treats us to some special forays out into the woods surrounding the river, where he gives us original material on places and things that have lived in Jersey legend since the rum runners ran these woods; Joe Mulliner, "highway robber of the pines"; the Leeds Devil, who.. "like a giant bird of prey, is seen to hover above some silent, star-bespangled pond within the umbrous recess of a cedar swamp"; and the lost town of Aserdaten, which has been swallowed by the vegetation of the mysterious Forked River Mountains. One of the really neat things about this book is that, because it was written in 1945, we get to learn about people and places from two distinct period of time. We learn a little about life along the Mullica during the World War II period, and we learn a lot about life along the Mullica in long times past, as the locals prominent in the late 1930's and early 40's relay their hand-me-down memories to Beck about the major events that shaped the river in colonial times. There are stories about the role of the river in the days of the iron furnaces at Batsto and Atsion, and glass production, moss pulling, pine cone gathering, and of course shipbuilding. The Mullica was an important river during the Revolutionary War, both as a highway for war supplies and a hideout for privateers who harassed and plundered British shipping so much that the British finally sent in several shiploads of well-armed troops to "break up once and for all this privateering along the Jersey coast". For some of the material in this part of 'Genesis', Beck digs information out of the late Gus Schneider, who made it a favorite hobby to collect the legends of British ships and Patriot resistance. Beck meets his match with Gus, for as the locals tell Beck about Gus;..."he don't write like you do....he just digs things up out of the river to prove its all true". All of this is just a glimpse of the wonderful stories about the people and places who made the Mullica their home that are to be found in "Jersey Genesis". In the final chapter (up around the headwaters), Beck expresses a melancholy sadness in bringing his story to a close..."the end of our journey and the river's end as well". Henry Charlton Beck loved the Mullica, and he brings the reader to love it as well. I look forward to a time in the future, perhaps when I have retired, to bring this book off the shelf and relive the trip to Down Jersey again.

This guide is too condensed. There is not enough information to plan your trip to NYC! The maps are poor in content and lack many of the needed information. The sections of the book give general information but is not specific enough to help you decide what sites to take in. I suggest choosing another guide that, eventhough it may be a little bigger in size, will give you more information about New York.

Excellent New York guide book: filled with many places to eat, go, visit, and simply ejoy. Also features detailed pop out maps of the city and surrounding areas. Imporant NYC phone numbers. Includes NYC history and information about specific areas and things to do. For example, let's say you want to know about Central Park. The book has a color picture of the park. It also has the parks location listed, information about the visitor center, a phone number, which buses you can take to get there, what hours it is opened, the cost, the website, and restaurants. There. The book is also entirely in color. Very cheap too!...

The book gives a good overview of the areas with many addresses. Anyhow I found it a bit too black and white. It gives useful maps, but no coloured pictures from the areas, which would make it a bit more pleasant to read.

I highly recommend this guide to anyone who will be traveling in the Northeast as well as Canada. This guide gives you everything from upcoming events for the year to where to stay & eat. The maps are easy to read and follow. I have been a reader of the Mobil Guide for many years and it is continuing to give the most accurate, up-to-date travel information. This is the MUST-HAVE for the Northeast traveler.

I concentrated on the Queens section the most and I would like to highlight the inconsistencies I found as well as the mistakes. First, the mileage for Forest Park states it is 3.75 miles, but when you read the description it doesn't add up. They say the first half is .75 and the second half is 2.5 miles. In addition the course isn't totally clear when I ran the first half I came upon what appeared to be a closed road, it was the only way I could run that would bring me back to the main road, so I believe I went the right way. Then I would like to write about Flushing Meadows Park. Try running this course...if you can, there is alot of construction that has changed the second half of this run and I think the authors weren't aware of this. Finally the map of the New York City Marathon in wrong, they put the Bronx where Queens should be. If these major mistakes exist in just the sections of the book I have read, I believe there may be more. I purchased this book because I couldn't find an earlier version of the same book, which I felt was very well done. It contained long runs through the entire borough and I thought this was a great feature. I hope the authors will reissue this book with the corrections and better diagrams of the runs.

This book is so great. I never knew there were so many great places to run in ny.

If this book had been titled Pittsburgh: an Architectural Portrait I may well have rated it at 5 stars. Of course, had it been titled such, I probably wouldn't of picked it up. It was not until I read a previous reviewers comments that I understood the inclination of the author to include extreme architectural details of many specific buildings in Pittsburgh. I found myself wading through much of the architectural descriptions searching for other points of interest. Had I been reading the book from the point of view of a student of architecture, I'm sure I would of found the book interesting. Instead I found much of it tedious. I did find the historical and social commentary interesting but lacking, leaving me feeling wanting more, which is why I sought such a book in the first place.

Pittsburgh is a city of surprises, most of them positive for out-of-towners. This book capably explains how the city became what it once was and what it now is.

Although the author is an academic (Professor of Architecture at Pitt) the writing style is reasonably warm and pleasant. Tales of individual buildings and neighbourhoods are told with passion and a precise eye for landscape and cityscape. There are more places celebrated in this history than people, but that's for another volume I suppose.

There are illustrations aplenty and the book is a marvelous guide for anyone who wants to explore one of North America's truly unique urban environments.

I wanted more information on the events and places than he provided. No doubt that Mr. Kayton is a terrific tour guide and NYC needs more scholarly guides; the typical guide in this great city is HORRENDOUSLY inept and ignorant. Other parts of the city, aside from the Lower East Side and Villages should have been covered - I can't imagine that no radical never called Murray Hill, Times Square, Turtle Bay, etc., home.

I've tried several of Bruce's actual Radical Walking Tours, which he still conducts in person. He researches, writes and organizes his work better, or more consistently, than he sometimes delivers it in person. But they are always stimulating as social history, leftist political history, labor and industrial history, and even humor. Easily among the best tours I've tried here in NYC and I've tried several.

Many "stops" in his tours have changed my very sense of certain NYC blocks & neighborhoods.

This book is also fascinating browsing history as well as one of the coolest specialty travel guides I've looked over. Good for new and veteran New Yorkers alike.

Not bad as a directory, this book fails to deliver any heat whatsoever. You just don't get a sense of what really goes on at these places and the reviews are so perfunctory and generally fluffy. We need a real insider's guide to sex in the city. Hopefully somebody will do one soon.

This tiny volume is filled with tantalizing tidbits -- from corset shops to strip shows to S&M schools. Hailing from a tiny town in Wyoming, I was surprised to learn about all of the *LEGAL* fun that can be had in the Big Apple! I've already tried several of the places recommended, and plan to visit many more in the near future.

This book was my new york bible. I used it to find some of the most amazing swing clubs I have ever seen.....if I say any more Amazon will not print this review

Having grown up in Coney Island I found this effort to be extremely substandard. This book takes the most uninteresting pictures of the most uninteresting individuals that I can imagine. Mr. Stein would have done much better to find alot more of the old timers who truly represent the feel and atmosphere of What Coney Island was, not so much the depressing delapidated dangerous neighborhood that it most unfortunately has become. He did not look hard enough to find what is truly representative of the Coney of lore, because had he done so, it's still there, just difficult to unearth. The pictures of the parade just shows how far down Americas greatest playground has gone. Do yourselves a favor and go to the library and pick out any number of other books on Coney Island and then compare. Unfortunately, you might become meloncoly and saddened, for Coney is really just a microcosm of what has become of this nations great cities.

I was EXTREMELY disappointed with this book. The title is VERY misleading. THIS IS NOT A BOOK ABOUT CONEY ISLAND!!! This is a book about carny people and Stein took the sleaziest most unattractive pictures of them. I know Coney Island. I lived there for 15 years and still visit annually. There is history of amusements and cultures that are not captured in this book. Out of 80+ pictures, there are only 3, including the cover wrap, about the attractions of Coney Island. The rest is a picture book of people. If you are looking for a nostalgic journey about Coney Island-SAVE THE RETURN COST & FORGET ABOUT THIS BOOK!!!

I love this book for the way it captures the feeling of the place. While it is not full of text about Coney Island, it is full of visual and emotional information. I am an ex-New Yorker and have a few books I turn to when I feel homesick, this is one of them.