View larger map tracing Holden's path through NYC
UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld in front of the General Assembly building (1950s)
As many great cities lay in ruins after World War II, New York City assumed a new global prominence. It became the home of the United Nations headquarters, built 1947–1952; inherited the role from Paris as center of the art world with Abstract Expressionism; and became a rival to London in the international finance and art markets. Yet the population declined after 1950, with increasing suburbanization in the New York metropolitan area as pioneered in Levittown, New York.
Midtown Manhattan, fueled by postwar prosperity, was experiencing an unprecedented building boom that changed its very appearance. Glass-and-steel office towers in the new International Style began to replace the ziggurat-style towers (built in wedding-cake style) of the prewar era. Also rapidly changing was the eastern edge of the East Village close to FDR Drive. Many traditional apartment blocks were cleared and replaced with large-scale public housing projects. In Lower Manhattan, urban renewal began to take shape around 1960, led by David Rockefeller's construction of the One Chase Manhattan Plaza building.
In a built-out city, construction entails destruction. After the old Beaux Arts Pennsylvania Station was torn down, growing concern for preservation led to the 1965 Landmarks Preservation Commission Law. The city's other great train station, Grand Central, was also threatened with demolition but was eventually saved. Meanwhile, New York City's network of highways spread under the guidance of Robert Moses, with consequent increased traffic congestion, but the defeat in 1962 of Moses' planned Lower Manhattan Expressway by community activists led by Jane Jacobs was an indication that Moses would no longer have the free hand he had enjoyed in the past.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_New_York_City_(1946%E2%80%931977)
