Pull up any movie from the 40s or 50s look at the New York of that era. It was something to behold. Ayn Rand waxed on and on in her books about how magnificent it was.
Shameful
True. Even looking at LAX or SFO from the early 60s you saw a habitable city.
Indeed it is. I like to view the colorized B&W movies of NY city life on Youtube, at the start of the 20th century.