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The New York City Book Awards 2009

The Fifteenth Anniversary Year

Award for Social History

Boulevard of Dreams: Heady Times, Heartbreak, and Hope Along the Grand Concourse in the Bronx by Constance Rosenblum (NYU Press)

Award for History

The Hudson-Fulton Celebration: New York's River Festival of 1909 and the Making of a Metropolis by Kathleen Eagen Johnson (Fordham University Press)

Award for Visual History

Mapping New York by Black Dog Publishing

Award for Cultural Anthropology

Mitzvah Girls: Bringing Up the Next Generation of Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn by Ayala Fader (Princeton University Press)

Award for Architecture

The Row House Reborn: Architecture and Neighborhoods in New York City, 1908-1929 by Andrew Dolkart (The Johns Hopkins University Press)

The 2009-2010 Book Awards Jury

Roger Pasquier, chair; Laurence Bergreen, Lucienne Bloch, Barbara Cohen, Jules Cohn, Joe Drape, John Hargraves, Bobbie Leigh, Cynthia Saltzman, Meg Wolitzer

The awards presentation, hosted by Adam Gopnik, took place May 5, 2010.

Audio

The winners and host

Winners Kathleen Eagen Johnson, Ayala Fader, and Constance Rosenblum with host Adam Gopnik

Meg Wolitzer and Adam Gopnik

Juror Meg Wolitzer and ceremony host Adam Gopnik

Constance Rosenblum

Constance Rosenblum

Juror Barbara Cohen on The Hudson-Fulton Celebration:

The book recreates the excitement of the celebration, exploring a seminal moment in New York’s history in its glorious achieve­ments, and the prosaic complexities of an emerging metropolis poised to lead in the new century.

Juror Bobbie Leigh on Mitzvah Girls:

Fader does more than reveal a society closed to outsiders: we end with a deeper understanding of these young women’s lives, so rigidly bound by mitzvot (commandments) while they try to negoti­ate modern life in New York City.

Photographs by Karen Smul


The 2009-2010 New York City Book Awards were generously underwritten by Ellen M. Iseman.