Robert A. M. Stern, et al.
New York 2000: Architecture and
Urbanism between the Bicentennial
and the Millennium.
Monacelli, 1,520 pages, $100

New York 2000 is the fifth in the monumental series of encyclopedic tomes by the architect and historian Robert A. M. Stern, always in collaboration with two other scholars. The first volume was “New York 1900,” co-written with John Massengale and Gregory F. Gilmartin, and published in 1983. While at the time it seemed a massive production—at 502 pages—it has been so dwarfed, in both size and quality, by the series’ later volumes that one presumes it will be completely redone to stand up to the rest. The second volume, New York 1930 (1987, 847 pages) by Stern, Gilmartin, and Thomas Mellins, is about halfway between New York 1900 and the next volume, New York 1960, in size and scope, and it, too, may warrant a new edition. The three volumes of such massive scope as to defy reason are New York 1880 (1999, 1,164 pages) and New York 1960 (1995, 1,374 pages), both by Stern, Mellins, and David Fishman, and, now, New York 2000, by Stern, Fishman, and Jacob Tilove. At 1,520 pages, printed entirely in color (all previous volumes were black-and-white), the book is so big and so heavy that the editors at The New Criterionhad to assign the review to one of the contributors who lived in New York so he could pick the book up at the office.