For those who think America became great through individual initiative unaided by the helping hand of government, Designing Gotham will come as a surprise. A professor at the U.S. Navy War College, Jon Scott Logel explores the crucial role played by military officers, many of them veterans of the Corps of Engineers, in the construction of New York City. As Logel points out, West Point once provided the only civil engineering courses in the U.S. and New York was not the only place that benefitted. West Point graduates surveyed and constructed railroads throughout America. Some did so for personal profit, but many “devoted their energies out of a sense of duty and moral obligation.”
