New York is the city that never sleeps. But this renowned insomnia would not be possible without the more than 200,000 men and women who work the nightshift – the fry cooks and coffee jockeys, train conductors and cab hacks, cops, docs, and fishmongers selling cod by the crate. Inverting the natural rhythm of life, they keep the city running as it slows but never stops.
In NIGHTSHIFT NYC, Russell Leigh Sharman and Cheryl Harris Sharman tell the stories of New York City nightshift workers. This ethnography of the night investigates familiar sites, such as diners, delis and taxis, as well as some unexpected corners of the night, such as a walking tour of homelessness in Manhattan and a fishing boat out of Brooklyn. The Sharmans show how the nightshift is more than simply out of phase, it is another social space altogether, highly structured, inherently subversive, and shot through with inequalities of power. NIGHTSHIFT presents the narratives of those who sleep too little and work too much, revealing the soul of a city hidden in the graveyard shift of 24-hour commerce when the sun goes down and the lights come up.
2009 Indie Book Awards, Best Non-Fiction Book of the Year
2009 Outstanding Book Awards, American Society of Journalists and Authors
"In the city that never sleeps, ways to describe the 24-hour life of New York City abound. But probably no book has ever examined the nature of nighttime work in the city — and of the often forgotten, faceless people who do it — in as great depth and descriptive power as Nightshift NYC." New York Times
"If you're looking to meander through late-night, big-city life without actually being on the NYC subway in the middle of the night, you can't go wrong with this book." Ketchikan Public Library
"This nonfiction tour bypasses generalizations with thorough research and sharp reporting to illuminate a complex and insular world foreign to most New Yorkers." City Limits Weekly
"Poetically written, sympathetic, and engaging, Nightshift NYC opens up an unexplored world of the experiences of those who work at night in New York. An excellent read."
Kirin Narayan, author of My Family and Other Saints
"NightshiftNYC introduces readers to the shadowy nighttime world of work and social life in contemporary urban America. It's a breath of fresh air."
Paul Stoller, author of Money Has No Smell: The Africanization of New York City
"[The authors] contextualize the personal anecdotes of their subjects by seamlessly weaving into the narrative pertinent data on the economy, transportation, health, industry, crime, labor, homelessness, immigration, and New York City history."
Library Journal
ALSO IN STORES...
"Rich with the textures and rhythms of street life, The Tenants of East Harlem is an absorbing and unconventional biography of one neighborhood, lying just beyond most tourist maps of New York City, told through the life stories of seven residents whose experiences span nearly a century. Modeled on the ethnic distinctions that divide the community, the book introduces the old guard of East Harlem: Pete, one of the last Italians holdouts; José, a Puerto Rican; and Lucille, an African American. Side by side with these representatives of a century of ethnic succession are the newcomers: Maria, an undocumented Mexican; Mohamed, a West African entrepreneur; Si Zhi, a Chinese immigrant and landlord; and, finally, the author himself, a reluctant benefactor of urban renewal. Russell Leigh Sharman deftly weaves these oral histories together with fine-grained ethnographic observations and urban history to examine the ways that immigration, housing, ethnic change, gentrification, race, class, and gender have affected the neighborhood over time. Providing unique access to the nuances of inner city life, The Tenants of East Harlem shows how roots sink so quickly in a community that has always hosted the transient, how new immigrants are challenging the claims of the old, and how that cycle is threatened as never before by the specter of gentrification." -From the University of California Press
"This book is simply excellent. The writing is fluid and compelling, the narrators themselves are fascinating, and the sense of place that emerges from the dense interweaving of narrative, academic research, and theory is rich and finely textured... Works like this could create a foundation for understanding the commonalities between memoir and oral history, or oral history and the personal essay. Anyone interested in works dealing with personal history, urban history, neighborhood history, all with easily accessible cultural and theoretical underpinnings, will want to read Sharman’s Tenants. -Oral History Review
"This stylish and passionate book revolves around the life histories of seven ethnically diverse residents of East Harlem, including the author. Russell Leigh Sharman skillfully uses these life histories to discuss city-level and supramacro-level (national and transnational) conditions that shape life experiences and changes in East Harlem as well as microlevel social interactions within the neighborhood... This book is useful for undergraduate courses on race and ethnicity and on urban anthropology, and its clear, literary, and often witty writing style will prove popular with students." -American Anthropologist
"Anthropologist Sharman (Brooklyn College) provides an ethnographic presentation in this significant and successful effort to reach nonspecialists and teaching and learning audiences. He effectively articulates the tension and confusion between individual choice and institutional influences. The narratives constitute marvelous expression and pleasant reading, and capture the cultural insights and "appropriation of histories" relative to Italians, Puerto Ricans, African Americans, Mexicans, West Africans, and Chinese in East Harlem. Sharman's scholarship is aptly evidenced by the richness and timeliness of literature employed, and it efficiently addresses critical housing, education, crime, employment, and immigration public policy issues." -Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries
"Sharman uses certain streets (106th, Pleasant Avenue, 116th) and a series of ‘life stories’, to make [East Harlem] come alive with the sounds of hope and fear. [He] lets his informants speak in their own voices about the traditional concerns of urban anthropologists: race, gender, poverty, mobility, identity and class... These case studies are an opportunity for the general reader to understand the changing face of Manhattan and its resilient people and economy.” -Times Literary Supplement
"An excellent contribution to the history of East Harlem, history of ethnic immigration and social inequality in the United States, and finally to understanding the phenomenon of the ethnically and class segregated U.S. inner city." -Philippe Bourgois, author of In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio
"The Tenants of East Harlem is an excellent and absorbing book on the way immigration and ethnic change have affected East Harlem and its residents. Through engaging, and often extremely moving, life stories of several residents of the community, Russell Sharman provides a window into the processes of change in this well-known New York City neighborhood." -Nancy Foner, author of From Ellis Island to JFK: New York's Two Great Waves of Immigration
