Back to the '70s? God help us...
Great book, by the way...
Posted on 01/27/2009 3:36:09 PM PST by xtinct
While many U.S. cities worry that their economies are deteriorating to the level of the 1930s Great Depression, New York City fears reliving a more recent decade that features strongly in city lore.
The 1970s were a low point in city history as a fiscal crisis almost pushed it into bankruptcy, crime rates soared, and homeless people crowded sidewalks as public services crumbled.
Almost a million people fled New York's Mean Streets during the decade for the safer, more stable suburbs, a population decline that took more than 20 years to reverse.
When discussing the current crisis, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, now seeking a third term, promises that he will not allow the city to return to the darkness of those days, although he stresses that it faces "giant financial problems."
"I know some are concerned that city services will erode," he recently told reporters. "Let me remind you that the city went down that road in the 1970s ... I can just tell you that we are not going to make that mistake again."
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
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CBGB-OMFUG reopening would be as authentic as Madonna really being Like A Virgin (and probably show up on Broadway as a Disney Production starring Zack and Cody as the Ramones).
Some things just can't come back to life.
I wish David Patterson would allow open season for hunters on hipsters, bad pizza, and kids who overuse their Nextel walkie talkies.
I know... :(
My first exposure to NYC was attending the NY Bike Show at the Colliseum in ‘77. Slim was one wide-eyed hayseed.
Fortunately, I had a good guide in a lifelone Manhattan native or I probably would have vanished into the IRT and never been heard from again.
Actually, I liked visiting NYC on several occasions more than other cities, especially in California. It is the city.
Yeah there was -- being young in the 1970's!
"Even pizza gets old after a while"...
Uh, you haven't had the right pizza --or you would have memories of it being so good that you ate the leftovers for breakfast -- especially in NYC.
"and what could possibly be good about disco?"
Disco meant that men learned how to dance in order to get anywhere with a girl, and I don't mean standing on the dance floor and flapping their arms like a chicken. Some were good dancers, some sucked at it, but most gave it a shot -- and you danced as a couple. (You could learn a lot about each other on the dance floor from dancing as a couple.) And women got to dress up in some beautiful dance clothes, because the guys also made an effort at dressing well, too.
While the very mention of "the 1970's & disco" used to make me blush, now I am really glad that I spent my youth back then. Beats the heck out of growing up today! I don't envy kids their current youth.
The Pakis or some other muslim herd runs the old Candy Stores now but they call them Stationary stores and the fountains are gone (btw...who buys a newspaper these days?). Things change. Some of it is ok (the Koreans). Much of it sucks. It’s all inevitable.
You have to understand that Bloomberg isn’t very good with taxpayer OPM, especially when he grinds the city down with distinctly socialist regulations and taxation. There is a consistent common logical fallacy that states that since one is rich one has great financial acumen. Inbred heirs of aristocracy and trust fund babies that piss OPM away neatly put that common fallacy to rest daily.
OPM rich ain’t financial acumen especially when it’s taxpayer funded and you continually waste it for the sake of your own power trip.
Joan Gralla’s probably young and liberal - but it wasn’t the economy that made New York City a living hell - it was misplaces liberal “compassion”, bad law and spineless politicians.
Still today one of my favorite treats is the rare occasion that I get to dance with my wife to More Than a Woman. We dance a lot, mostly Latin and Compas but I’ll still Hustle or Latin Hustle when I can...and I was a tough guy (note I wrote ‘was’).
Back to the '70s? God help us...
Great book, by the way...
My friend wore an outfit one time that made her look like Pebbles Flintstone....at a fancy Long Island disco....All the cocktail waitresses had on the same outfit....She was so upset we had to leave.....I was hysterical laughing.
In “Atlas Shrugged” the recovery began after the lights of New York went out.
The rest are just big towns.
Over the years I have acted as a personal tour guide for friends (including one sothron freeper) who are making their once in a lifetime trip to the city. We walk a lot and they get the skinny on all kinds of arcane NY minutiae, like where the speak was where my grandfather drank during prohibition. I enjoy it.
In the 70's we cut HS in NJ once in a while to roam around Manhattan. At 16, we would look for the dirtiest bars, march right up to the bar and sit down and drink. Then observe the interesting people on the streets as in a zoo.
You are a vet. Those anti-war marches there were not about what you think. We checked out a few; the same bunch of us. 75% of those people were s-faced wasted. OD's and acid freak-outs in Central Park were many. Not us.
The only thing that ties me in any way to the east coast is we went to the highest floor the WTC was up to yet. The 86th floor. We didn't bother any of the workers as told by their supervisor. Just looked around.
I will always have a reflexive anger about what happened there and at precisely who.
Anything you want or need, you can find in NYC.
Isn’t NYC supposed to be a showcase for the wonders of liberalism?
The Herald, the Journal American, Long Island Press...gone but mostly not forgotten.
I actually lived in LA at the time, but I traveled to NYC probably 7 or 8 times back then, mostly in the late 70's, on business -- but I partied too.
We dressed differently in LA, and believe it or not, we dressed more formally out West for dancing than people in NYC did. Surprised the heck out of me, because in business, it was the exact opposite. But when I see some of the clothes on Dancing with the Stars today, I recall having had similar outfits back in the 1970's -- and I wasn't a professional dancer, just a talented amateur.
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