On the day of the great stock market crash in 1929, Joseph Mitchell arrives in New York. He is just twenty-one years old. As a reporter for The Herald Tribune and The World-Telegram, he soon covers sports events, murder trials, accidents, trivialities – and his favorite topics: marginal existences, oddballs, eccentrics. Whether it’s a female boxer, a highly intelligent gangster, or a voodoo magician, the fringes of the Italian anarchist movement, the Lindbergh trial, or burlesque clubs: Joseph Mitchell depicts them all with enthusiasm, empathy, a healthy dose of humor, and great attention to detail. This creates a multi-voiced panorama of New York City life during the Great Depression.

In the early short reports and columns of the legendary reporter Joseph Mitchell, "the greatest city in the world" is presented in miniature. Another volume of straightforward prose from "America's greatest reporter.".