“Communities large and small--urban, suburban and rural--can, and should, learn from the remarkable transformation of New York City’s Bryant Park and the area surrounding it. Andy Manshel shows how effective place-making is a key to effective talent attraction, economic development, and urban revitalization strategies.”
~Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class
"Andrew Manshel has a straightforward yet infinitely complex goal: to turn the urban spaces we all have to share into urban spaces we all want to share. To achieve that, he gets a view of the city that is simultaneously panoramic and detailed, theoretical and nitty-gritty. This thorough and eminently practical book is shot through with deep love for metropolitan life, wisdom accumulated through experience, and the humility that comes from understanding that cities are made of people, in all their glorious, maddening unpredictability."
~Justin Davidson, Pulitzer prize-winning architecture and music critic, New York Magazine
"Manshel writes in a highly accessible style about New York City history and the history of contemporary landscape design. He offers the unique perspective of senior management on Bryant Park’s transformation of the park from drug den to tourist haven."
~Michele H. Bogart, Stony Brook University
"The important work by Andy Manshel and other leaders in the BID movement contributed greatly to the turnaround of New York City in the early 1990s and beyond. Most importantly, BID’s led the way in rethinking, reclaiming and reinvigorating long neglected public spaces. This book chronicles how that happened and why public space — our shared front yard — is central to creating livable and vibrant cities."
~Rudy Washington, former NYC Deputy Mayor
"Learning From Bryant Park is by far one of the best books ever written about how to successfully manage, program, fund, and operate public spaces. It's a must read for anyone who wants to learn the science and art of doing so."
~Cynthia Nikitin
"The story of its turnaround is now told by Andrew M. Manshel in Learning from Bryant Park: Revitalizing Cities, Towns, and Public Spaces. As cities in quarantine now face down a new form of disruption, Bryant Park’s lessons of revival are more vital than ever before."
~The New Criterion - The Critic's Notebook
~Gothamist
~New York Daily News
"Learning from Bryant Park makes me want to revisit that gem in the heart of Manhattan and look more closely at some of the details that helped make the space so successful."
~Rein Reports
~Groks Science Radio Show podcast
"The Frankie Boyer Show" interview with Andrew M. Manshel
~The Frankie Boyer Show
~The American Downtown Revitalization Review
~Metropolis Magazine
"Manshel’s credo is an extremely valuable one, just as useful for repopulating public spaces in the post-pandemic future as it was for filling them beforehand."
~The American Conservative
"Sophisticated and compulsively readable."
~Planners Library
"Learning from Bryant Park opened my eyes up to a world of placemaking that goes well beyond design but ties into the ideas of New Urbanism. It ultimately offers a vision for the revitalization of urban places—especially small cities and towns that have been overlooked—all across America....Learning from Bryant Park is a powerful book—and important book—on placemaking and urban revitalization."
~Public Square
"The strategies of Bryant Park as outlined in this book should be the first place to look when seeking to transform troubled public spaces. Even one visit to the incredible Bryant Park will convince anyone of that."
~The New Criterion
~The America Trends podcast
~New York Times
~Planetizen
"[Manshel's] retelling of these efforts will broaden the enjoyment of everyone who loves urban life and is curious about the City’s special places."
~CityLaw
"Worth reading as a guide to post-pandemic urban-space management."
~City Journal
"[Manshel's] retelling of [lessons were equally revealing on placemaking] will broaden the enjoyment of everyone who loves urban life and is curious about the City’s special places."
~CityLand
"Book Look: A Moveable Seat" by Jeff Hagan '86
~Oberlin Alumni Magazine
"An engaging study and has a propulsive energy that encourages readers to embrace its author’s strongly asserted point of view."
~The Metropole