Blue Guide New York (Fourth Edition) (Blue Guides)

Carol von Pressentin Wright's "Blue Guide to New York" is probably the most comprehensive guidebook to the Big Apple available. Absolutely indispensable, it includes 41 detailed maps for all five boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island, along with several black and white photographs. As a New Yorker, I cannot think of anything that has not been included here. I frequently use the book myself, especially when I have out-of-town visitors. It is also excellent, for New Yorkers and visitors alike, to use on walking tours. I have the 2002 edition.

In an extremely accessible format, "The Blue Guide" presents information on all NYC districts and important sights, including: practical information, lodgings, restaurants and eateries for every budget, transportation, museums and galleries, sports, performing arts, shopping, monuments, historic detail and districts, detailed walking tours and background information. As noted, there is a veritable...Read more

Simply the best book available for those seriously interested in a detailed architectural history of New York, even though the most recent edition was published in 1991. Unbelievably rich in detail. As other reviewers point out however, this is NOT a typical "tourist" guide about where to eat, sleep or have fun in New York.

Until Kenneth Jackson's _Encyclopedia of New York City_ this was the closest thing to an encyclopedia of New York City in existence. Don't buy this book for restaurant reviews or the best hotels; the other guides are for those things. There is a (small and) half-hearted set of restaurant and hotel listings in the front of the tome, but the rest is the real meat of the book: Fantastically detailed walking tours of every part of the city. Manhattan is throughly covered, of course, but the other boroughs don't get overlooked as so many other books do. Buckets of historical data, curious facts, interesting nuggets of info fill every page. Hopefully a newer edition will come out soon, but until it does this book is the best!