Showing Twenty Minutes in Manhattan by Michael Sorkin

Over the course of more than fifteen years, architect and critic Michael Sorkin has taken an almost daily walk from his apartment near Washington Square in New York's Greenwich Village to his architectural studio further downtown in Tribeca. This walk has afforded abundant opportunities for Sorkin to reflect on the ongoing transformation of the neighbourhoods through which he passes; inspired by events both mundane and monumental, "Twenty Minutes in Manhattan" unearths a network of relationships between the physical and the social city. Sorkin takes the reader on a journey past local characters, neighbourhood stores, buildings, streets and blocks, which he describes with wry humour and self-awareness, as well as a consideration of other points of view.Yet his perambulations are more than a general reflection on what he sees every day: they also offer a technique for engaging a wide range of issues that preoccupy him as an architect, urbanist and citizen. Whether Sorkin is despairing at street garbage, or celebrating elevator etiquette, "Twenty Minutes in Manhattan" offers a testing ground for speculation about the way in which the city can be newly imagined and designed, to deal with pressing issues such as the crisis of the environment, free expression and public space, security and surveillance, the place of history, and the future of the 'neighbourhood. "Twenty Minutes in Manhattan", growing out of an intimate relationship with a much-loved locality, ultimately offers a grounded set of ideas that are relevant not only to the preservation and amelioration of New York, but also to cities everywhere.