How one woman harnessed people power to save old New York

New film tells story of Jane Jacobss battle’s against the wealthiest developers in the city. She was a beaky, bespectacled architecture writer, hardly a figure likely to ignite protests that changed the shape of one of the worlds great cities. Yet such is the legend of Jane Jacobs and her bitter struggles to preserve the […]

First edition of Isaac Newton’s Principia set to fetch $1m at auction

Rare European copy of key mathematics text is going under hammer at Christies in New York with record guide price. A first edition of Sir Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica could become the most expensive print sold of the revolutionary text when it goes under the hammer with a guide price of at least $1m (790,000) […]

What the cleaner saw: dirty secrets of the upper crust

The Long Read: When I took a job cleaning expensive Manhattan apartments, I had no idea what I would find out about my clients. I heard about the cleaning company from a friend’s boyfriend, a musician who had supported himself by cleaning houses for years. I was living in an apartment in Brooklyn, sharing a […]

Mike Pence introduced as Trump’s vice-president pick after days of uncertainty

At a Manhattan event held a day late after the Nice terror attack, the candidate lauds Indiana governor despite reports he had preferred Chris Christie After a week of uncharacteristic hesitation and second-guessing, Donald Trump formally introduced the Indiana governor, Mike Pence, as his vice-presidential running mate on Saturday. The event, at the Hilton Hotel […]

Jessa Crispin: ‘We’re not allowed to say the Paris Review is boring’

The editor of Bookslut, which shut down last week, talks to the Guardian about the current state of American literature and its attendant frustrations A couple of weeks ago, Jessa Crispin shut her longstanding book review site, Bookslut, down. Fourteen years after shed founded it, she told me at a Brooklyn coffee shop last week, […]