Overview

An in-depth look at Boston's Prudential Center and what its story reveals about the evolution of the modern American city The Prudential Center anchors the Boston skyline with its tall, gray tower. It is also a historical beacon, representing a midcentury moment when insurance companies such as Prudential were particularly aware of how their physical presence and civic engagement reflected upon their intangible product: financial security. Looking to New York's Rockefeller Center, the creators of the Prudential Center aspired to use real estate development as a tool toward civic achievement, reinvigorating central Boston and integrating a large complex of buildings with new infrastructure for the automobile. Now available in paperback, this award-winning book tells the full story of ""The Pru,"" placing it in the political, economic, and architectural contexts of the period, and providing new insights into urban renewal in postwar America.

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9780300280821

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Reviews

Honorable Mention in the General Non-Fiction category at the 2012 New England Book Festival Winner of the 2013 Lewis Mumford Prize from the Society for American City and Regional Planning History “More than the story of a single project, Insuring the City is a thoroughly engaging account of the evolving relationships between cities and suburbs, downtowns and midtowns, architecture and business, public policy and private interests, and development politics and visual culture.”—Lawrence J. Vale, MIT, author of Architecture, Power, and National Identity “A very valuable book, one that will be essential reading for scholars concerned with the twentieth-century city and its architecture.”—Richard Longstreth “You don’t have to be from Boston to admire Insuring the City. Elihu Rubin returns a long overlooked player—corporate America—to the story of urban renewal and reminds us in particular how crucial insurance companies were to the creation of the postindustrial city. This is a handsome and important book.”—Lizabeth Cohen, author of A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America “Fascinating. . . . Rubin offers a surprisingly broad reinterpretation of urban renewal in the automobile age . . . treat[ing] corporate decision makers seriously as shapers of the postwar city.”—Urban History Association

Author Information

Elihu Rubin is the Henry Hart Rice Associate Professor of Architecture and Urban Studies at Yale University.

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