"The City That Was" by Stephen Smith is a historical account written in the early 20th century. The book documents the dire sanitary conditions of New York City in the mid-19th century, focusing on the contributions of Smith and others to a major public health transformation. It provides a detailed examination of the health crises caused by overcrowded tenements, rampant disease, and a lack of effective sanitation measures, and it critiques the neglect of city management towards these issues. The opening of the book presents a shocking portrayal of New York during the mid-19th century as a "blind metropolis" plagued by preventable diseases due to horrendous living conditions, particularly among the poorer immigrant population. Stephen Smith, who had been directly involved in investigating these conditions, describes a city with inadequate drainage, filthy streets, and overcrowded tenements, resulting in high death rates from diseases like typhus, cholera, and tuberculosis. This part of the narrative sets a grim backdrop for the implications of urban neglect and the urgent need for health reforms that would later be instigated by the findings of his inspections and advocacy efforts. (This is an automatically generated summary.)