MANHATTAN ’45 by Jan Morris (Oxford...

MANHATTAN ’45 by Jan Morris (Oxford University Press: $9.95) Jan Morris has compiled an enraptured valentine to New York at one of the most exciting moments in its history. The soldiers returning from Europe landed in a city that radiated energy and confidence in its role as the cynosure of America--and the world. Morris’ enthusiastic descriptions capture the spirit of the time when the United Nations was about to establish its headquarters by the East River; Charlie Parker was playing at the Downbeat on West 52nd St.; “The Glass Menagerie,” “Oklahoma!” and “On the Town” were hits on Broadway and Rockefeller Center was still owned by Americans. She also discusses the seamier side of the city’s life: Corruption flourished, Harlem was already a decaying black ghetto and some of the worst slums in the America existed on the Lower East Side. But this entertaining, informal history makes it obvious that for most of its inhabitants, Manhattan was a safer, more agreeable place to live in 1945 than it is in 1990.