Book Event: Jonathan Mahler

Book Launch: Jonathan Mahler presents The Gods of New York: Egotists, Idealists, Opportunists, and the Birth of the Modern City: 1986-1990

In conversation with Ginia Bellafante

Bestselling local author, and longtime staff writer for the New York Times Magazine, Jonathan Mahler launches The Gods of New York at Greenlight! New York City entered 1986 as a city reborn, but also as a city divided, with record profits on Wall Street while thousands of New Yorkers slept in the streets. Over the next four years, a singular confluence of events – involving a cast of outsized, unforgettable characters – would widen those divisions into chasms: Do the Right Thing, crack, the AIDS epidemic, Black Monday, and of course, ready to pour gasoline on every fire – the tabloids. An exuberant, kaleidoscopic, and deeply immersive portrait of a city in transformation, Mahler discusses the story of these outsized characters and convulsively defining years with New York Times critic Ginia Bellafante, before an audience Q&A and signing.