Like the city on which it’s based, the work in this book is complex, colorful and diverse. It ranges from the somber (Michael Light’s aerial view of a Brooklyn wastewater treatment plant) to the whimsical (Chi Peng’s The Day After Tomorrow, in which a group of naked winged fairies invades midtown). There are dreamy black-and-white landscape shots and intensely-saturated color close-ups; there are cacophonous images of crowds and quiet views that capture the feeling of being alone in a metropolis. The contributors include established art-world names like Vik Muniz, Jeff Mermelstein and Tim Davis, and up-and-comers like Kate Schermerhorn and Arash Radpour.
     With a presentation this diverse, it’s inevitable that each viewer will find work to like and dislike. Anyone looking for a book full of pretty tourist images will be disappointed; there are some lovely images of the city here, but mostly the work is more edgy. The best imagery is fresh and surprising, taking a familiar aspect of New York and presenting it from a new angle. That angle might be distancing, as in Vincent Laforet’s clever vertical views of bathers at Coney Island and Bryant Park–or it might be intimate, as in Joel Sternfeld’s wonderfully specific depictions of Queens businesses and homes.