Crossing the BLVD: strangers,neighbors, aliens in a new America

Winner 2004 Brendan Gill Prize
“A celebratory chronicle of the immigrant experience in New York, Crossing the BLVD is a Whitmanesque book that reveals a staggering array of humanity… [It] chronicles life in Gotham in both its despair and boundless promise. The first-person narratives are drawn from audio interviews, while the book’s ever-changing graphics and typefaces mirror the rich pastiche of religion, language and tradition that coexists in the borough… chosen for its ability to convey the inspired resiliency of the myriad communities that contribute to the city’s dynamism.” Municipal Art Society of New York 

Winner 2003 Innovative Use of Archives Award “We honor Crossing the BLVD for exploding the paradigms of oral history and reinterpreting them for our multimedia century… for its boldness and creativity as it charts a lasting record of this vibrant, diverse community in New York City—the new Ellis Island.” Archivist Round Table of Metropolitan NY

Winner Best of the Best Award2004 New York Book Show

Selected Best Books of 2003 Publisher’s Weekly “New York’s undersung borough of Queens, home to the new Ellis Island (the airports), is the most diverse county in the country today, and documentarians Lehrer and Sloan have innovatively brought it to life… A poetic, arresting, vividly printed mosaic.”

Selected Best Books & Audio CDs of Indie Culture 2004 Utne Reader“Crossing the BLVD is a one-of-a kind amazingly designed book… portraits of immigrant Americans, images of their belongings, maps, and innovative typography combine to bring these lives up off the page…”

Received Top Rating Library Journal “Crossing the BLVD collects the searing first-person stories of 79 Queens residents, recent immigrants from everywhere… documentary artists Lehrer and Sloan have produced a collective oral history as vibrant as a live event. Strongly recommended for public and academic collections.”  Janet Ingraham Dwyer

Recommended as a Gift Pick from New York Magazine & Time Out NY

“Immigrant life in Queens, as told in the intimate, rich, comic, ironic and sad stories so often seen but not heard in America’s big cities…” The Washington Post Lynne Duke.

“With first-person accounts from 79 immigrants in Queens, the 400-page book is an offbeat ethnic tour of one of the country’s most ethnically diverse counties. It does not point out trendy kebab palaces or obscure taco stands, but rather tells riveting stories about a new wave of immigrants to America…”The New York Times Corey Kilgannon

“This stunningly innovative book goes beyond pathos and into the kaleidoscope of experience that defines real immigrant life, in all of its complexity.” City Limits Debbie Nathan

“Crossing the BLVD is a paradigmatic American studies text. It is an innovatively designed, beautiful, moving, funny, stimulating, horrifying, and illuminating book. The stories that Lehrer and Sloan have collected of migrants who came to the United States after the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act speak to the wide-ranging interests of American studies scholars. If you are interested in visual culture, oral history, class and culture, music, immigration, ethnicity, urban history, race, queer studies, narrative and storytelling, gender or transnationalism and globalization, you will find touchstones for your own thinking and your classroom discussions… The people profiled in this book of migration stories remain tangibly alive in your memory… More than a book for American studies scholars or students, it is a pleasure to read—a book to be read for the sheer enjoyment of it.” American Quarterly Kirsten Swinth

“Behind the drab storefronts and nondescript homes that define the borough, Sloan and Lehrer discover a soulful place teaming with immigrants from Mexico to Australia whose stories unfold in a kaleidoscope of color…” CNN

“[In] Crossing the BLVD, Warren Lehrer and Judith Sloan tell of refugees fleeing distant wars and repression, undocumented laborers, asylum-seekers caught in mandatory detention, school teachers…They are new Americans, tossed together as neighbors, classmates, co-workers, enemies and friends. [Crossing] is about struggle and hope and transformation.” New York NewsdayDonald Myers

“In the spirit of Jacob Riis and others who powerfully and enduringly depicted immigrant life on the Lower East Side in the early part of the 20th century, Warren Lehrer and Judith Sloan tell the stories of new immigrants in Queens… Their new book, Crossing the BLVD has an immediacy and rich depth to it, reflecting the diversity of the most ethnically varied county in the country… Not like other volumes about ethnic New York: It is not a guidebook to neighborhoods nor a sourcebook for ethnic shops and restaurants; rather, its focus is on immigrants’ lives… The book’s distinctive layout—with color photographs, visual artifacts and blocks of text in different sizes and typefaces, conveying different voices—has the feeling of an open conversation…” Jewish Week Sandee Brawarsky

“In the new typographical and geographical adventure Crossing the BLVD… immigrants from all over the world tell their harrowing, thrilling, inspiring stories… arriving in Queens, NY—sometimes to thrive in freedom, sometimes to meet new obstacles. These stories are our parents’ and grandparents’ stories relived by new Americans who came from Congo, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Colombia… Collected in this gripping new book, filled with photos and maps and portraits. The text jumps and continually changes clothes and sizes…because that’s how people talk. Especially when their tales are worth hearing.” New Haven Advocate Paul Bass

“A lens on the world… Crossing the BLVD thinks of Queens BLVD not as the “Boulevard of Death” but as an avenue of new lives. It lays out an international array of extraordinary experiences.” New York Daily News Celia McGee

“I have never seen a book like this. [Crossing the BLVD is] a remarkably beautiful, lovingly put together example of bottom-up journalism.” Amy Goodman, Anchor/Executive Producer Democracy Now!

“In their extraordinary attempt to document ‘signs of migratory life’ …[Lehrer and Sloan] undertook the impossible task of telling the story of modern-day Queens while providing a window into the geopolitical and cultural history of the postcolonial world. Undeterred, they succeed because they focus on 79 powerful individual stories that deserve telling… The stories selected counter a prevailing trend toward oversimplification of American demographics and cultural history. Crossing the BLVD is an important project encouraging people to listen attentively to rarely heard stories. The Next American City Anika Singh

“I’ve been interviewing authors and doing books for 24 years, and I can tell you Crossing the BLVD is one of the best books I’ve ever read! It’s so innovative, so rich, so fabulous. The book is beautifully designed. It’s like a work of performance art. Thank you, thank you, thank you [Warren Lehrer and Judith Sloan] for putting this book into the world and giving a voice to these people.” The Faith Middleton Show Connecticut Public Radio

“Crossing the BLVD boldly carries the tradition of oral history into the 21st Century… electrifying collage of voices, faces, and spirits, capturing the true elasticity and inclusiveness of American culture.” Eve Ensler, author, oral historian, performer The Vagina Monologues

“Crossing brims over with the energy, heart and spirit that went into creating this important work. A fitting tribute to the world it so lovingly documents.” Dave Isay, documentary public radio artist, MacArthur Fellow

“A book of stunning originality, tremendous visual flair and cinematic depth, Crossing will forever change the way we think about our cities, our communities, our neighborhoods, our neighbors, and ultimately, our own backyards. It’s as if we’ve all been invited to an enormous block party, where Lehrer and Sloan have personally introduced us to some of their most fascinating neighbors. By the end of the book, strangers somehow feel like friends, and the boulevard feels a lot like home.” Alan Berliner, filmmaker & media artist

“Lehrer/Sloan’s fascinating book offers unique insights into the rich and combustible cauldron of cultures and ethnicities in the most diverse corner of America. Crossing reveals the impact of changes in immigration law through the oral histories of asylum seekers caught in mandatory detention, refugees fleeing war and persecution, and those pushed out of their countries struggling to re-create their lives. The significance of this extraordinary volume is that, ready or not, it provides a glimpse of the new America which is emerging.” Ron Daniels, Executive Director, Center for Constitutional Rights