Over Here!: New York City During World War II

by Lorraine B. Diehl

Book Overview

"I loved this book and all the great memories it captured." --Tom Brokaw

Over Here , the latest chronicle of the history of New York City by Lorraine B. Diehl--lifetime resident of the Big Apple and author of The Late, Great Pennsylvania Station and Subways--relates the true story of New York City during World War II. From the Brooklyn Naval Yard to Times Square nightclubs, from children's Mickey Mouse gas-masks to victory gardens in Rockefeller...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0061431346
• ISBN13: 9780061431340
• Release Date: January 2010
• Publisher: Smithsonian Books (DC)
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.42 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 7.4" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

INSTEAD OF OVER THREE

We sure look through many a book about over there during the war, WWII, but with OVER HERE we get to take a wonderfully nostalgic look here, NYC. Lorraine Diehl is a wonderful urban New York historian with several books under her belt. This may be the best. We get a look at NYC as the war drums start beating, New York a city with Nazis marching and Jews arriving in flight. Take a look at the greatest city in the world go into war time mode and feel the rich history of the war from a different perspective. RECOMMENDED.

OVER HERE:NEW YORK CITY DURING WORLD WAR ll

Ms. Diehl paints such a vivid picture of my native city,New York, in wartime.For a baby boomer it is wonderful to know how things went just before I was born in Brooklyn(Canarsie). I just couldn't put it down. I recommend this book without a doubt for New yorkers or not.

It's Like Being There!

Lorraine B. Diehl's "Over Here!: New York City during World War II" is a fascinating look into Manhattan in the years just before and during the Second World War. Ms. Diehl has obviously researched the subject intensively, but this is no dry, academic work. She makes every page alive with the events of the day--the pro-Nazi gatherings in German-populated Yorkville, the casual anti-Semitism overheard in the borough's neighborhoods, and then the realization that the European war is coming to the United States. Helped by gorgeous black and white photos of Italian-American women underneath an American flag, soldiers and sailors entering the city, city-wide metal scrap drives, and female factory workers doing their part for the war effort, she brings the energy and patriotism of the city to life. Ms. Diehl's book is a must for readers interested in W.W. II, New York City, and what life was like during that tumultuous time. Following on the successes of her previous books, "Subways" and "The Automat," the author again proves that she is both a master researcher and a master writer. Marilyn Brooks

"Over Here!"--A fascinating history of New York City during WW II

As a lifelong New Yorker devoted to his city, I thought I knew quite a bit about The Big Apple's history - that is, until I read "Over Here!", Lorraine B. Diehl's eye-opening exploration of just what went on in New York City during World War II. Like most people, I tended to think of The Second World War as essentially a European, Pacific and African conflict. However, it turns out, according to Diehl's dramatically written and thoroughly researched history, that New York had it all: from pre-war Nazis who storm-trooped down Manhattan's East 86th Street in the German Yorkville area to a 20,000-strong Nazi rally in legendary Madison Square Garden, from enemy spy rings that operated in the city throughout the war to German U-Boats constantly threatening New York's costal waters. Hitler, we learn, even had plans for a bombing attack on the city's skyscrapers, complete with "a detailed map of Manhattan with an arrow pointing to its center," writes Diehl. Taking us from the city's pre-war naïveté about the Nazi threat, Diehl describes how the city was jolted out of its innocence following Pearl Harbor and thrust into a war footing, with blackouts on Broadway, curfews on city streets and the instant army of civilian air-raid warden volunteers who patrolled the rooftops in all five boroughs. Nothing is whitewashed. Yes, we learn of the war-bond drives and the patriotic fund raisers put on by New York's top names in show business, but we also read of the anti-Semitism that existed in the city, especially prior to the war, and of the discomfort that black servicemen and women often felt on leave in New York. It was the reason, writes Diehl, that they "would rather dance at the Savoy Ballroom on Lenox Avenue" in Harlem "than at Roseland" in midtown Manhattan. The author methodically supports her research throughout the book with interviews of "ordinary" New Yorkers who were there. So, when President Roosevelt dies, for example, we get the reaction through the voices of those who literally heard the news of his death when it happened. When Germany finally surrenders, a New Year's Eve-sized crowd immediately jams into Times Square to celebrate, and a few who were actually in the crowd that day tell us what it was like. To be sure, Over Here! reads more like a novel than a history book. And what makes this page-turner even more rewarding are the rare and often startling photos of New York during the war years that fill it from cover to cover. For instance, as a New Yorker born during the war, I grew up attending lots of sporting events and shows at the old Madison Square Garden on Eighth Avenue and 50th Street, but my stomach sank when I came to the photo on page 21 that shows MY Garden filled with more than 20,000 Nazi sympathizers. A final point worth making: Because this is a book about WW II, understandably there is no mention of the 9/11 attack on New York, which took nearly 2,600 lives som

The Way It Was

This book is a joy! Having grown up in New York City during the Second World War I recall many if not most of the events and places about which Ms. Diehl has written. The photos are excellent, but it's the author's narrative that truly plumbs the essence of the most remarkable city in America at the most remarkable time in its history. The Big Apple never looked or felt quite so big as it does in the pages of Lorraine Diehl's "Over Here."