In 1902, almost 500,000 immigrants landed at Ellis Island. By the end of the decade, the annual total reached a million. A quarter of them stayed in New York. The city's population was growing rapidly, by nearly 50 percent from 1900 to 1910, and the growth was skewed to one particular group whose values were viewed by many Americans as suspect, namely immigrants. Immigrants, especially those from Eastern and Southern Europe, had inundated New York so much that by 1910, most of the city's residents were either new arrivals or first-generation Americans. Economic hardship blanketed New York throughout the 30's, particularly in Harlem, where 40 percent of the families were on relief.

Yet when Albert Camus arrived from France for a visit in March 1946, he was stunned by the city's visible economic power, its magnificent food markets and monstrous billboard advertisements, all designed to arouse envy among war-ravaged Europeans.

From 1938 to 1947, New York became the recognized capital of world culture, but its triumphs came in chiaroscuro, as full of darkness as of light. The city never regained the economic superiority over the rest of America that it enjoyed in the pre-Depression 20's. As blacks and Puerto Ricans arrived en masse, more than a million whites departed for the ballooning suburbs. The 40's marked the first decade in which more people left New York than came.

The city has always been too skilled at reinventing itself not to bounce back from hard times. But by the mid-70's, only an irredeemable optimist could keep the gremlins at bay, the ones that stalked the soul in the dead of night.