New
York City, 1950s
Immediately following
World War II New York City emerged as an economic and
cultural world center. Changes between 1945 and 1960
reflected the concentration of multinational
corporate administration, finance and related
services in the city. In midtown Manhattan, newly
constructed International Style glass and steel
towers added millions of square feet of office space
to house firms’ corporate headquarters.
Consequently, Manhattan’s employment of white-collar
professionals and office workers accelerated. The
Upper East Side, once a lower-middle- and working-
class district, offered new and expansive luxury
housing for the city’s executive class and
expensive shopping boutiques along Madison Avenue.
With such extravagance and wealth came a growth of
cultural institutions dedicated to music and art that
insured New York’s leading position as cultural
capital. Uptown, the traditional locus of high
culture, contained a network of art museums, dealers
and galleries that featured the works of de Kooning,
Rothko and Kline, among others. Suburbanization of
the city’s middle-class residents also
accelerated. New bridges, tunnels and expressways
linked New York City to suburbs in Long Island,
Connecticut and New Jersey.
Suburbanization and
the decline in manufacturing had significant effects
upon the social, economic and cultural landscape of
the city. White middle class residents relocated to
the suburbs while minorities moved from the south and
Puerto Rico to build communities in the inner city.
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The book upon which this
web site is based,
Selling
the Lower East Side,
is available
directly through 
or order through 
Site design © 2000:
Kurt
Reymers and Dan
Webb.
(University at Buffalo, Department of
Sociology)
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