This volume brings together more than 300 images selected from the substantial postcard collection assembled over twenty years of research by the archtect Italo Rota. The hand-painted cards represent the most prodigious of New York's buildings, parks, statues, intersections and bridges from the late 19th century to the Second World War. They provide a fascinating architectonic vision of the American city, contrasting with the vivid realism of photography and offering,through the prism of figurative art, an insight into the meaning of a myth.