Manhattan Transfer narrates fragments of the life of a vast gallery of characters whose common denominator is the space and time in which they move, the New York of the twenties, as well as the main objective of most of them: obtaining money as fast and easy as possible. What marks a clear dividing line between them is the height at which they place their moral ready. The fact that the characters represent the most diverse social layers (dock workers, waiters in large hotels, prostitutes, alcohol traffickers, lawyers, trade unionists...) and the most distant origins (French, Irish, Caribbean, etc.) confer to this work the monumental character portrait of a city.