“a work of social archaeology”
– Sean O’Hagan, The Guardian of London

“a book whose pages convey, beautifully, the strange cultural moment when a rat-infested hulk of a building hosted a perfect storm of creativity.”
– Financial Times Weekend Magazine.

“a stunning cross of scholarly history and Smith’s haunted photography.”
– Village Voice

“One of only thirteen books in 2009 to make each Year End lists of Publisher’s Weekly, Amazon, and the New York Times.”
– Amazon

“The most chaotic and soulful gift book this year…The book is an elegiac stew of sight and sound, and a singularly weird, vital and thrumming American document.”
– Dwight Garner, New York Times

“The samples from the tapes that Stephenson had transcribed work with the photos to bring a moment in jazz loft life as perhaps no work in any other medium, including documentary cinema, ever has. Absolutely magnificent.”
– Booklist, starred review.

“(A) landmark book…This will be an essential book for jazz fans, photographer lovers and those interested in the history of New York.”
– Publisher’s Weekly, starred review.

“Every obsessive deserves his own obsessive Boswell, and W. Eugene Smith has his in Sam Stephenson”
– Fred Kaplan, New York magazine.