I still recall visiting NYC with an older neighbor/friend who was going to attend college there in 1977.
We were walking through Times Square in the middle of the day. I was 15 or 16. A very large Black woman axed us : “You boys want a date?” We were boys from the country. We just shook our head and said no. thank you.
I also remember going there the spring(2002) after 9/11 on a company trip. We stayed in a nice hotel right on the west side of Times Square next to Madame Tousos Wax Museum. It was clean. Cops were everywhere.
You could walk around at 1am and feel safe. My boss felt it was our patriotic duty to go spend money in NYC. It was REALLY quiet on the weekends after 9/11.
For a company picture we all assembled in front of PEEPORAMA. “Having a great time in NYC”
This was the last peep show place left in the Times Square area. All the others had been closed down.
You witnessed the contrast from the wormy Big Apple to Giuliani turning into a near Disneyland. It was a beaitiful city - best on earth.
We won’t see that again in our lifetimes. NYC will never elect a Rudy, and NYS will never vote GOP again like they did with Pataki.
Also, in the 70s it still had the fundamentals that made it great - “magic dirt” commercial real estate, banking capitol of the planet, best retail/shopping, the radio and TV center of the US.
That’s all gone. Skyscrapers have huge vacancies. Goldman moved to Florida and most trading is now done online, so no reason for Wall Street to even be there. Nobody watches network TV or listens to the radio anymore. Even the legendary ports/harbor, another “best on earth” doesn’t have the sigificance it once did. The natives have been supplanted with godless shitholians who suck up welfare and services, then vote for communists, real ones, to supply the addiction.
The city is done - just a matter of how hard and deep the fall will be, and how long it will take.