The ‘70s was the last gasp of greatness in American cities. Meaning, goodness. NYC was such a juggernaut that it really hasn’t slowed down completely yet or been dominated by crime until very recently. But most cities, much smaller, seemed to retain what they had before the riots changed everything along with “civil rights”, perhaps because the department stores remained and the whites who left still tried to go in to shop.
I didn’t get to experience that myself, mom didn’t seem to want to go down anymore, but I’ve seen film from our city in the ‘70s and people were still crowding the streets going to all the dept. stores.
Our area city—Hartford, CT—had massive black riots in 1968.
There has been no coming back from that—whites fled and have no reason ever to return.
I remember as a kid in the sixties riding the escalator to the 5th floor where the toys were. They had a lot more toys than anything in our small town. Generally, we got our toys from Sears or Montgomery Ward catalog.