“The Best Nonfiction Book About New York, 2015” — Village Voice, which in a 2015 cover profile by Jay Ruttenberg said, “With St. Marks Is Dead, Ada Calhoun just became the most important new voice on old New York.”

“The lively history of a three-block area in lower Manhattan where celebrities, public figures and social movements have converged… [Calhoun] has an eye for intriguing — often titillating and little known — tidbits about St. Marks characters.”

“Calhoun, who grew up on St. Mark’s Place, is careful not to romanticize any one era of the East Village (which serves as a suitable proxy for much of New York City during the past century). St. Marks Is Dead is an ecstatic roll call.”

“Timely, provocative, and stylishly written …Calhoun’s book serves as a welcome corrective to that rallying cry [that gentrification is bad], and to the tendency to romanticize New York City in the 1970s, when the city was far more riotous and permissive than it is now. … Her aplomb, in fact, is precisely what the discussion needs. Her portrait of neighborhood resilience might suggest more temperate proposals for an increasingly polarized debate.”

“Calhoun makes a case for the enduring relevance and legacy of St. Marks Place, the quintessential downtown street and home to everyone from W.H. Auden to Keith Haring.”

“[Starred Review] An illuminating stroll through the decades of one of the most culturally significant streets in America…breezy…engagingly personal…Rather than a nostalgic lament, this revelatory book celebrates an indelible cultural imprint.”