Mike Wallace, who told the history of New York City in three acclaimed books, has died at 83, The New York Times reports.

Wallace, a Brooklyn native, was raised in San Francisco, Queens, and Long Island. He was educated at Columbia University, where he received bachelor’s, master’s, and Ph.D. degrees in history. In 1970, he published American Violence: A Documentary History, which he co-edited with his dissertation adviser, Richard Hofstadter,the historian and author of The Paranoid Style in American Politics.

In 1998, Wallace and co-author Edwin G. Burrows published Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 with Oxford University Press. The 1,408-page book received rave reviews from critics and won a Pulitzer Prize.

Wallace returned in 2017 with Greater Gotham: A History of New York City From 1898 to 1919, which he wrote without Burrows. A third volume in the series, Gotham at War: A History of New York City From 1933 to 1945, was published last October; in a starred review, a critic for Kirkus praised the book as “a historical tour de force.”

Wallace’s admirers paid tribute to him on social media. On the platform X, New York City Comptroller Mark D. Levine posted, “The word usually used to describe the Gotham trilogy is ‘magisterial’. It brings NYC history to life in all its beauty and messiness like nothing I’ve ever read. Mike Wallace gave an enormous gift to the city. RIP to a giant.”

And fellow New York historian and tour company founder Asad Dandia wrote, “A tremendous loss for NYC: Mike Wallace, maybe the most significant NYC historian to ever live, has passed away. His ‘Gotham’ trilogy is the most thorough social history of the city ever written. There will never be another like him. May he Rest In Peace.”

Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.