This well-written and sumptuously illustrated book is filled with surprises that add texture and richness to life in the Big Apple. Wild peacocks, parrots, and raccoons rather than the Bronx Zoo; cricket, lawn bowling, surfboarding, and pistol shooting rather than the Yankees and the Mets; a Japanese pagoda-inspired house and a Frank Lloyd Wright house rather than a Brooklyn brownstone or the Empire State building; wineries, rolling ladder manufacturers, and fishing tackle businesses rather than the New York Stock Exchange; key lime pies not seltzer; fragments of the Berlin Wall and Gaudi-like mosaic benches rather than the Guggenheim or the Met; a statue of Lenin rather than the Statue of Liberty.<P> Unexpected New York is about places, activities, events, and entities in New York City that surprise.
