PositiveThe Los Angeles Review of BooksMoss is more than exasperated. He feels himself to be under siege. Think of his Vanishing New York as a dispatch from the front lines of a war zone, where the resident population is losing badly and the cityscape is being ravaged. Most of New York’s residents, in Moss’s account, are collateral damage in a market-driven economy. For all its liberal pretense and Democratic voting record, Moss sees the city as a capitalistic coven, where if you can’t meet the increasing rent, fuhgettaboutit, you’re outta here … For someone born and ill-bred in New York, having written indeed of its problems but also its premiums, Vanishing New York is a depressing read, from the introduction to the implacable final chapter, which offers Moss’s faint encouragement to keep seeking ‘the unexpected spectacle and the chance encounter.’
