Levittown: The First 50 Years

Rating:
Summary: Levittown, it deserves better.
Review: I expect this sold a few copies in Levittown but if you want a pictorial history of this fascinating suburb, as I did, forget this book. Unfortunately nearly every one of the two hundred photos is either blurred, soft focused or not even relevant. It is as if the originals were all photocopied and these copies sent to the printer. The inflexible layout means all the photos are either one or two columns wide and printed with a 133 screen on soft paper does not help either. I can only guess that the authors wanted to produce the book as cheaply as possible, nearly all the photos are copyright free (I assume) and credited to the Levittown Public Library Collection.

The most interesting chapter to me was the one dealing with the construction of Levittown, even with the awful photos you can see the wood frame construction of the houses, the cement block floors with the heating pipes and there are several pictures of the Cape Cod and Ranch type units which make up the 17,500 houses in the suburb. In the back of the book are several photos (and these, taken by co-author Tova Navarra, are probably the best in the book) of the remodelling that most of the houses have gone through depending on the owner's needs.

Plenty of photos show life in Levittown but as they are no better than snap-shots they don't do justice to the people shown, the place or the reader. All very disappointing because having just read Barbara Kelly's excellent book `Expanding the American Dream: Building and Rebuilding Levittown', I think there is an opportunity for some publisher to do a well designed coffee-table pictorial history with good photos of the houses, their interiors, construction, community life, house blueprints, maps and more. `Levittown: The First 50 Years' makes me want to know more and done properly.

Rating:
Summary: Levittown, it deserves better.
Review: I expect this sold a few copies in Levittown but if you want a pictorial history of this fascinating suburb, as I did, forget this book. Unfortunately nearly every one of the two hundred photos is either blurred, soft focused or not even relevant. It is as if the originals were all photocopied and these copies sent to the printer. The inflexible layout means all the photos are either one or two columns wide and printed with a 133 screen on soft paper does not help either. I can only guess that the authors wanted to produce the book as cheaply as possible, nearly all the photos are copyright free (I assume) and credited to the Levittown Public Library Collection.

The most interesting chapter to me was the one dealing with the construction of Levittown, even with the awful photos you can see the wood frame construction of the houses, the cement block floors with the heating pipes and there are several pictures of the Cape Cod and Ranch type units which make up the 17,500 houses in the suburb. In the back of the book are several photos (and these, taken by co-author Tova Navarra, are probably the best in the book) of the remodelling that most of the houses have gone through depending on the owners needs.

Plenty of photos show life in Levittown but as they are no better than snap-shots they don't do justice to the people shown, the place or the reader. All very disappointing because having just read Barbara Kelly's excellent book 'Expanding the American Dream: Building and Rebuilding Levittown', I think there is an opportunity for some publisher to do a well designed coffee table pictorial history with good photos of the houses, their interiors, construction, community life, house blueprints, maps and more. 'Levittown: The First 50 Years' makes me want to know more and done properly.