Great Fortune: The Epic of Rockefeller Center - Softcover

Okrent, Daniel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0142001775 ISBN 13: 9780142001776

Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group, 2004

Synopsis

In this hugely appealing book, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, acclaimed author and journalist Daniel Okrent weaves together themes of money, politics, art, architecture, business, and society to tell the story of the majestic suite of buildings that came to dominate the heart of midtown Manhattan and with it, for a time, the heart of the world. At the center of Okrent's riveting story are four remarkable individuals: tycoon John D. Rockefeller, his ambitious son Nelson Rockefeller, real estate genius John R. Todd, and visionary skyscraper architect Raymond Hood. In the tradition of David McCullough's The Great Bridge, Ron Chernow's Titan, and Robert Caro's The Power Broker, Great Fortune is a stunning tribute to an American landmark that captures the heart and spirit of New York at its apotheosis.

About this title

Review:

Those of us who love New York tend to love the city passionately, for its past as well as its present. Daniel Okrent's Great Fortune: The Epic of Rockefeller Center is a book for New Yorkers from Ashtabula to Zimbabwe: a study of ambition, audacity, and deal-making on a grand scale that led to the construction of some of the most famous skyscrapers in the world. The cast of characters includes not only the many and diverse members of the Rockefeller family, but other powerful New York institutions such as Columbia University, the Metropolitan Opera, the Museum of Modern Art, and The New York Times--not to mention the radical Mexican artist Diego Rivera, the New Yorker cartoonist William Steig, the Marx Brothers, and a bevy of "Rockettes." Okrent's narrative neatly balances the epic and the intimate; he offers both authoritative pronouncements on modern architecture and reams of good gossip. Like New York itself, Great Fortune contains multitudes: densely packed, it remains surprisingly--and welcomingly--commodious. --Tim Page

About the Author:

Daniel Okrent is a prizewinning journalist, author, and television commentator. For many years he was a senior editorial executive at Time Inc. In 2003 he was appointed the first Public Editor of the New York Times.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0142001775
• ISBN 13: 9780142001776
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 512