Magnetic City: A Walking Companion to New York by Justin Davidson
Spiegel & Grau, 2017
Paperback, 240 pages

Walking tours and New York City go together as books. Amazon brings up nearly 250 titles in a search for "New York Walking Tour" and I have at least a half-dozen such books in my library. Although there exists such walking tours as Radical Walking Tours of New York City, Beat Generation in New York: A Walking Tour of Jack Kerouac's City, and Touring Gotham?s Archaeological Past: 8 Self-Guided Walking Tours through New York City, the format lends itself best to architectural tours. The Municipal Art Society put out 10 Architectural Walks in Manhattan in 2009, for instance, and even the AIA Guide to New York City ? albeit hardly convenient to carry at 1,088 pages and 2-1/2 pounds ? includes numerous walking routes for people to navigate the city while they look at old and new buildings of note.
Magnetic City by Justin Davidson, architecture and classical music critic for New York magazine, would appear to fall into this niche category; after all, it is subtitled A Walking Companion to New York and seven of its eleven chapters are structured as walks around different parts of the city, most in Manhattan. But a few things should tip off readers to his book being different, being more than just walking tours: the size of the book (~7x9"), larger than most guidebooks but still light enough to carry, thanks to lightweight paper and ...