SOURCE: "Waterfront Metropolis," in The Christian Science Monitor, Vol. 52, No. 142, May 12, 1960, p. 86.

In the following review of The Bottom of the Harbor, Kenney applauds Mitchell for giving readers a chance to experience the sights, sounds, smells, and noises of New York harbor.

Much of New York is exposed to view by its mighty sky-piercing buildings, its snarled traffic on the broad avenues, the roar of subways; the shifting of great greyhounds of the sea in the busy harbor; and even fishing in Central Park and sun browsing on the steps of the public library on Fifth Avenue.

But Joseph Mitchell, in The Bottom of the Harbor, has exposed off-the-track drama in New York. A drama that comes only to those who live here, walk the streets in sun, rain, fog, and at night. He intimately acquaints you with a personality, an activity, a smell, a noise, or an...