New York: City of Dreams

A Big Apple Reader for Beginner Students of ESOL

Third edition, 2024

"Unique and up-to-date. Covers essential aspects of life in New York City. An amazing book!"

-Natalie Graham, ESOL instructor, Brooklyn New York.

New York: City of Dreams offers 28 reading selections about New York City: its history and culture, customs, getting around, where to go, what to see and what to do.

Most of the topics are common knowledge to people who have grown up in New York City, but are new and interesting to visitors and immigrants.

This book was written mostly for beginner students of ESOL, but it can also be useful to ABE-HSE and EL-Civics students. It provides vocabulary practice, comprehension exercises, grammar points and follow-up discussion suggestions.

Written by an ESOL teacher who is also a native New Yorker, City of Dreams is part cultural reader, part guidebook and part vocabulary and conversation textbook. Along with its companion volume New York: City of Opportunity (written for higher level students), it is the first ESOL reader about the Big Apple.

Part I. The City
1. Welcome to New York City!
2. New York City’s First People
3. Old New York: 1524-1898
4. Manhattan
5. Brooklyn
6. Queens
7. The Bronx
8. Staten Island

Part II. Getting Around
9. The New York City Subway
10. Riding the Subway
11. Riding the Bus

Part III. Things about NYC
12. New York City Says “Hi” to You!
13. Stay Safe
14. Emergency 911 and Non-Emergency 311
15. Finding a Good Restaurant
16. Tipping
17. Public Libraries in New York City
18. Theater, Music and Dance!

Part IV. Where to Go, What to Do
19. Times Square
20. Central Park
21. The High Line
22. The Metropolitan Museum of Art
23. The National Museum of the American Indian
24. Three Quiet Places in Manhattan
25. A Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge
26. The Brooklyn Botanic Garden
27. The Staten Island Ferry
28. Study English in NYC

Talk Together (classroom conversations)
NYC Links     (online contacts)
Answer Key to Exercises