This vivid account of hustling in New York City explores the sociological reasons why con artists play their game and the psychological tricks they use to win it. Terry Williams and Trevor B. Milton, two prominent sociologists and ethnographers, spent years with New York con artists to uncover their secrets. The result is an unprecedented view into how con games operate, whether in back alleys and side streets or in police precincts and Wall Street boiler rooms.

Whether it's selling bootleg goods, playing the numbers, squatting rent-free, scamming tourists with bogus stories, selling...

Harlem Supers is a micro ethnography and in-depth analysis examining the superintendent occupation within the broader context of the city and a primary focus on various Harlem communities. Williams aims to provide an understanding of the life of superintendents and the role they play in the city, the building, the block, and the neighborhood as contributors to the analysis of migration patterns, community-building, and displacement in specific American urban areas. Examining the life of the community facing a rapid process of gentrification, displacement, desertification and renewal, Williams...