It's a Helluva Town: Joan K. Davidson, the J.M. Kaplan Fund, and the Fight for a Better New York
Roberta Brandes Gratz
Bold Type Books, November 2020

Hardcover | 5-3/4 x 8-1/2 inches | 256 pages | English | ISBN: 9781645036869 | $28.00

PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION:
The J.M. Kaplan Fund was established in 1945 by Jacob M. Kaplan, and would go on to play a critical role in New York City's cultural and urban life. Kaplan's long leadership of the Fund (1945-1977) was marked by determined advocacy, including the effort to save Carnegie Hall from destruction, support for institutions like The New School for Social Research and the South Street Seaport Museum, as well as to bolster the cause of union democracy, the arts, and the co-operative movement. Since the 1970s, the Fund has been led by Kaplan's daughter, Joan K. Davidson, who has led the Fund to its current place as a forceful presence in New York City's civic life, supporting the Westbeth Artists Housing, Greenmarkets, and more. Roberta Brandes Gratz is an award-winning journalist, urban critic, lecturer, and author who has published four previous books, including most recently We?re Still Here Ya Bastards: How the People of New Orleans Rebuilt Their City and The Battle for Gotham: New York in the Shadow of Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs.
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dDAB COMMENTARY:
Although her name is the first in the book's subtitle, and her face the first photo in its pages (first spread, below), It's a Helluva Town...