“New York had become, as the saying went “the capital of everything”—America’s financial, industrial, engineering, architectural, publishing, theatrical, musical, radio, advertising, opinion making, sports, fashion, and gossip center” (47). Donald Miller’s Supreme City was one of the most informative yet interesting books I have read in a long time. The Jazz Age was one of the most exciting times in American History because rebellion was everywhere and in the City of Dreams, anything was possible. When combining the Jazz Age with Manhattan, the future was endless and industrious as Miller describes in the book. Miller wrote about the rich and famous men and women who were mostly foreigners to the city that recreated Midtown. Alongside the …show more content…
Donald Miller wrote everything is such a lively way and one would never know that the man he described as “the very expression of Jazz Age New York” was best known for the astonishing corruption that ended his political career (3). Shoving aside the unfavorable issues, Miller makes a great case that Walker got something done in office and it makes the reader love Jimmy Walker just as much as Miller claimed New York City did. “Walker made greatly needed improvements in the city’s hospitals, struck down restrictions against African American doctors at Harlem Hospital, built new schools, parks, and playgrounds, established New York’s first municipal sanitation department and the city’s first planning commission, and pushed through tunnel, bridge, and highway projects to relieve vehicular congestion,” as stated by Donald Miller (7). He suggested that foreign New Yorkers forgot these solid accomplishments but the natives worshipped him and his accomplishments. Walker was one of the most liked mayors that New York has ever had. Donald Miller describes him as extremely relatable, intelligent, and lived the life that many dreamed to live during the 1920s. He was the most alive mayor, going to every “nightspots, neighborhoods, ballparks, ballrooms, and public places where he was seen and photographed with the headliners who gave the 1920s New York its fabled reputation—Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Irving Berlin, Florenz Ziegfield, and Damon Runyon” (30). Miller wanted the reader to know that the Jazz Age welcomed this mayor because he was the symbol of what this time represented: freedom. People loved him and supported him. Walker saw that the city could inspire and sought to move along the process quicker. As Warren Moscow specified in Supreme City, he had “the quickest mind ever seen in politics, even to this day” (43). Because of his profligate habits, Walker couldn’t