I’m with the cops on this one.
New York may descend back to the 1970s: crime, graphiti but most of all a general sense of fear. Unless you were wealthy.
My recollection is that the annual peak homicide count in NYC was a bit more than 1900 (that is, one thousand nine hundred, or more than five per day on average), but I don't remember what year, and now that information is strangely difficult to come by using Google.
1978 1518 1979 1752 1980 1821 1981 1832 1982 1675 1983 1628 1984 1458 1985 1392 1986 1598 crack hits NYC 1987 1691 1988 1915 1989 1927 1990 2262 1991 2166 1992 2005 1993 1951 1994 1572 Giuliani becomes mayor 1995 1180 1996 983 1997 767
Source (a pdf). Source data only covered 20 year interval from 1978-1997.