Grimossfer Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

Sharkflei Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

pismo10 If you are looking for another "Civil War" quality production, this documentary is not up to par. This is a very racist, preachy, agenda driven account of New York's history. It is very slow and dwells constantly on how awful the blacks were to the irish, how awful the irish were to the blacks, how awful the protestants were to the catholics, etc and on and on for endless hours. This is the theme of this documentary. It is much more a very biased social study of the history of NYC. Very negative, looking continually at the darkest sides of man in a very exaggerated, highly dramatic (today's Hollywood) manner. Virtually every line has a reference to race, religion, class. Always negative of course. Pathetic. Could not get through it all as it became completely predictable. Every story turned in to one on the evils of man and society. Nice pictures, lousy story. A long, boring, repetitive sermon. Absolutely terrible.

bananafisher I like New York. I think it is a fascinating city, one of the earliest skyscraper cities of the West, one of the most cosmopolitan and dynamic places, and I don't really care about the slow pace of the documentary, but really, to tolerate the sheer number of ludicrous statements in every chapter is too much for me. Whatever the subject, be it the amount of immigrants, the speed of construction, even the metro system, everything is in superlative. Hearing those 'historians' speaking about New York one might think there has never been urban history outside of it. It is always the best, the most, the densest, unheard of, unparalleled and etc. I mean, there are many valid points to make, as New York was a kind of first vertical metropolis of the West but the constant gratuitous exaggeration of everything annoyed the hell out of me. In episode 4 I hear one of the historians saying that those immigrants from Russia where (I am paraphrasing) nothing has changed much from the medieval times suddenly found themselves in the most modern city on Earth. Really? I mean, Russia wasn't the most advanced state in the end of the XIXth century, but it was still one of the biggest empires and Saint-Petersburg was one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. Or when they say that the density of population of East Harlem was the biggest ever seen in the history of humanity. Wow, why not in the history of the universe? Why be so modest? These constant exaggerations really spoils what is otherwise an interesting deep insight into the urban history of the Western immigrant culture.

MisterWhiplash Sure Ric Burns (related directly to TV-documentary maestro Ken) may not provide a documentary that is outright 'entertaining' like a Michael Moore film, or isn't strangely engaging in its montage like Errol Morris' The Fog of War, but he understands something that all good documentary filmmakers know. If you get your subject down, and what story of the subject you want to tell, the rest is just history, literally. And if you are a history buff at all, or just interested in the tales and lineage and drama that made what is New York City what it is today, this is the documentary to see. Of course, it's not an easy feat; like his brother Kens's Jazz documentary, New York is split up into seemingly countless hours of detail, going over its 300+ year history, from the days of Henry Hudson, to the Revolution, the the draft riots (covered brilliantly in Gangs of New York), the trials and tribulations of the immigrants, and leading up to 9/11.It's basically the kind of documentary in which once you see one part of it, say part 2 covering 1830 to the 1870, or part 5 covering the early 1900's, and you want to see more, you'll know what you're getting. One could criticize the over-abundance of dramatic, TV-esquire music, the emphasis on piling on the weight on certain subjects over others, or that (ironically) the time given still isn't enough. But as one interviewee says, there is not one definitive book or books by an author that give a totally clear idea of what New York was like in such a time and place or another. For someone who has been to the Apple countless times, seen many of Manhattan and Bronx's sites, and recognized that New York carries with it the residue of dozens of passing generations and cultures and tragedies and joys, this serves as THE documentary, at least with information terms, what New York was. At the least, you can impress (some of) your friends and family with bits of information, like about Alexander Hamilton or how the formation of all the NYC roads were built, or the bits within the massive scope of the immigration stories.

Steve (WUsaga212) As a native New Yorker, i really found this documentary on New York very interesting. Ken burns did very good work on the "Jazz" documentary, and I found this on PBS one Saturday. I was very interested on how New York would be portrayed, and it was portrayed kust like it is, a wonderful city with a long history. "New York" is not to be missed by any New Yorker or anyone interested in New York.A