Abstract
A People’s Guide to New York City
By Carolina Bank Muñoz, Penny Lewis, and Emily Tumpson Molina
University of California Press, January 2022
As tourists return to New York City after the Covid-19 lockdown, it is an ideal time to let them know there is more to the city than Rockefeller Center, the Metropolitan Opera, or Central Park.
Penny Lewis, associate professor of labor studies at the School of Labor and Urban Studies at CUNY was invited to contribute to a new series of People’s Guides to Cities, this one on New York. Coauthored by Carolina Bank Muñoz, Penny Lewis, and Emily Tumpson Molina A People’s Guide to New York City shifts perceptions of what defines New York, placing the determination, defeats, and victories of its people at the core. Included are workers on strike, musicians and performers claiming streets for their art, and neighbors organizing against environmental hazards and in support of affordable housing and public schools. Through the stories of over 150 sites across the Bronx, Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island as well as thematic tours and contemporary and archival photographs, a people’s New York emerges, one in which collective struggles for justice and freedom have shaped the very landscape of the city.