Happy New Year!

Posted on 3 Comments

First and foremost, I would like to wish all visitors to 17th Street a happy new year! I hope that 2009 proves to be a prosperous and enjoyable year for you all.

I am also pleased to be able to say that this date (or rather, the 31st of December) marks the 3rd birthday of 17th Street. Huzzah! As regular visitors would know, several changes have been made to the site over the past year including the addition of a costume section, an author section, and the establishment of a new message board for discussion of the books. Nevertheless, I hope to make 2009 an even better year in the life of the site.

Over the course of the next year, I intend to expand the site content further. My main goals include finishing the character section once and for all (I am determined that Stevie will get a biography at last!), revising the book timelines, adding more profiles to the personalities and true crime pages, and adding a forensic science section. I would also like to encourage visitors to be more interactive this year. 17th Street certainly doesn’t lack numbers (the site usually attracts between 400 and 600 visitors everyday) so if anyone has any ideas on how this could be achieved, I would love to hear them.

Well, once again, best wishes for the new year and thank you for your continued support.

Big Update!

Posted on 1 Comment

There are several pieces of site news and Caleb Carr news to make mention of in this update so I encourage you to read this entire post, particularly the second last paragraph (hint, hint).

The most obvious thing to make mention of is that for the first time since the site opened in 2005, 17th Street has a new layout! As you might have gathered, I love historic maps and the one featured in this layout is a panorama of Manhattan from early in the 20th century. Although the overall look is a rather big departure from the previous layout, I hope that you all still approve of it and find it easy to navigate.

In addition to the new layout, I am pleased to announce a new section of the site containing information about Caleb Carr which can be accessed via the Author link in the navigation menu. It contains a summary of Mr. Carr’s education and career, links to interviews he has given over the years, and a list of his book and film works. The only thing missing from that section of the site is a publicity photo. If you know of any relatively recent photos of Mr. Carr that I would be free to use, I would appreciate it if you would contact me. Please note that any photos you suggest will need to be of a similar size and quality to those found elsewhere on this site, and I would like to be able to get permission from the photographer.

Now, onto the news that I’m sure you’re all more interested in.

In completing this update, I made the discovery that Mr. Carr is working as a librettist on composer Ezequiel Viñao’s new opera, Merlin. Although this doesn’t really count as “news” given that the opera has been in progress since the 1990s, I hadn’t heard about it until I stumbled upon the opera’s website recently, so I assume that there are others of you in the same position as myself. Plus, I happen to love opera so this is almost as exciting as a new Alienist book, from my perspective!

For those of you more interested in Mr. Carr’s books, however, the opera’s website also contains another piece of exciting information: it is written that Mr. Carr is currently “continuing work on several creative projects, including a new Alienist volume and the Ezequiel Viñao opera, Merlin.” This, of course, means that we finally have confirmation from a source other than The Age (at last!) that the elusive third Alienist novel is in progress. Love opera or not, I think it’s safe to say that this is good news all round!

Well, I hope you’re all pleased with this month’s site update. As always, if you have any feedback, you’re welcome to leave a comment on this post, post at the message board, or contact me directly.

Kreizler and Cyrus Biographies Updated

Posted on No Comments

I realise that it has been several months since my last update to 17th Street but I can assure you that I have not forgotten about the site; unfortunately, my PhD work has left me with little opportunity to spend time working on the site content. Nevertheless, I have recently begun revising the character biographies and have managed to finalise two of them. The biographies of Dr. Laszlo Kreizler and Cyrus Montrose have now been completely re-written, so I recommend having a read of them even if you have looked over them before (you are welcome to contact me if you find any errors). Anyway, thank you all for your patience and I hope to have more spare time over the next few months to continue working on the site.

Page Numbers

Posted on No Comments

I have been rather busy in the past few weeks so I’m afraid that this isn’t a very substantial update. I just wanted to mention that the page numbers associated with quotes from The Alienist and The Angel of Darkness have now been updated and are consistent with the Franklin Library editions of the books. While these page numbers will be different for paperback editions, the associated quotes should still be relatively easy to find.