Most nonfiction books these days are emblazoned with audacious titles that demand an explanatory underline. “Never Built New York” (Metropolis Books, $55) doesn’t need one.
In his foreword, the architect Daniel Libeskind describes this imaginative picture book for adults by Greg Goldin and Sam Lubell as “nostalgia, regrets or opportunities missed” — a catalog of dashed dreams and dodged nightmares.
Most of the what-ifs were culled by the authors, both of them architectural critics and historians, from 19th- and 20th-century and contemporary blueprints. They will be featured at the Queens Museum next year in an exhibition (with, one hopes, a more welcoming typeface). Among them:
James E. Serrell’s ambitious 1865 plan to expand Manhattan by rerouting the East River to a new canal farther east.
Gustav Lindenthal’s gigantic engineering vision of 1887 linking Manhattan to mainland America across the Hudson River, from West 23rd Street.
McKim, Mead and White’s grandiose 1893 Beaux-Arts design for the Brooklyn Museum, crowned with 128 statues.
Ernest Flagg’s shriveled reverie from 1904 that would have reduced Central Park to an 800-foot wide green ribbon running between Christopher Street and the Harlem River.
Mayor William J. Gaynor’s suggestion in 1910 to cleave a new avenue between Fifth and Sixth.