The Last Days of New York: A Reporter’s True Tale

De: Seth Barron

Narrado por: Maxx Hennard

Bill de Blasio set the stage for the ruin of New York City.

The Last Days of New York: A reporter’s true tale tells the story of how a corrupted political system hollowed out New York City, leaving it especially vulnerable, all in the name of equity and “fairness”. When, in the future, people ask how New York City fell to pieces, they can be told - quoting Hemingway - “gradually, then suddenly”.

New Yorkers awoke from a slumber of ease and prosperity to discover that their glorious city was not only unprepared for crisis, but that the underpinnings of its fortune had been gutted by the reckless mismanagement of Bill de Blasio and the progressive political machine that elevated him to power. Faced with a global pandemic of world-historical proportions, the mayor dithered, offering contradictory, unscientific, and meaningless advice. The city became the world’s epicenter of infection and death. The protests, riots, and looting that followed the death of George Floyd, and the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement - cheered on and celebrated by the media and political class - accelerated the crash of confidence that New York City needed in order to rebound quickly from the economic disaster. Through reckless financial husbandry; by sowing racial discord and resentment; by enshrining a corrosive pay-to-play political culture that turned City Hall into a ticket office; and by using his office as a platform to advance himself as a national political figure, Bill de Blasio set the stage for the ruin of New York City.

©2021 Humanix Books (P)2021 Humanix Books

Reseñas de la Crítica

"The growing number of elected socialists and other progressives, including Mayor de Blasio, have given Barron enough targets to fill a book, The Last Days of New York, that even the most dyed-in-the-wool lefties ought to read.” (Errol Lewis, New York Daily News)

Great book bad narrator

Great book but the narrator mispronounces a lot of names: Jumaane Williams, Ed Koch, Joe Percoco, just to name a few. Awesome material and content otherwise.

Progressive Rot and Ruin

Progressives ruin everything they touch. Communism is one of the roots of all evil, with its need to enslave and kill the population, while the few select collect the spoils. Enter the likes of Bill de Blasio and his ilk of liars, crooks, and thieves. Seth Barron details the continued fall of the city and New York itself with dastardly criminal policies. And it will only get worse. Excellent book and exceptional narration.

Excellent Insights Ruined by Terrible Narration

OMG, this narration! But before I get into it, let me say that Seth Barron is a serious thinker and has some excellent insights into New York City of the last few years and how housing, criminal justice, and educational policy have gone astray because of government capitulation to public employee unions and woke mobs. I disagree with some of his analysis, and certainly that New York has seen its "last days." But anyone who says to themselves, "I'm liberal, so I feel like NYC politicians are doing the right thing," should read this book.

But the operative word is READ the book. The audio version is awful, because of the utter lack of preparation of narrator Maxx Hennard, who mispronounces words and names left and right. Here are some examples (the full list is probably three or four times as long):

Calling "pols" (short for politicians) "polls"
Pronouncing bow as "bOH" in "shot across the bow"
Pronouncing proviso as "pro-VEE-zo"
Constantly spelling out N-Y-C-H-A when every NYer says "NEYE-chuh"
A favorite getaway for NYers is the Berkshires (BERK-sheers), which he pronounces "BERK-sheyers"
Our capital, Albany, is "AL-buh-nee," as in Al Franken
This one may be the worst: Mayor Ed Koch is pronounced "coke," like the billionaire Koch brothers (Ed is actually "COTCH")
The venerable middle class enclave Stuyvesant Town, named for a Dutch governor of NY, is "sty-VESS-unt"
Disparate becomes "dis-PAR-ut"
Our police commissioner, Dermot Shea (correctly pronounced "DUR-mut SHAY" is "der-MOTT SHAY-uh" to Mr. Hennard
Last, but only because this listing is getting too long, is the name of corrupt Cuomo aide Joe Percoco (correctly, "pur-COH-coh"), who is now Joe "pur-SOH-coh," which isn't even a good guess

You get the picture. The sad part is that Mr. Hennard is pretty good when he gets the pronunciation right. But his narration distracted terribly from actually digesting the content. It's just unprofessional to guess rather than verify pronunciation.

Mr. Barron, as good a writer as he is, deserves some of the blame for the audio version -- no New Yorker could have listened to the mess that Mr. Hennard made of so many words and names and not have immediately demanded that it be rerecorded. Maybe it's not too late?

I hope Mr. Barron writes another one soon - but of course with a different narrator.