Glad I’m not there. I lived there in the 70s and it was a time you walked down the street as if you lived in Calcutta, looking over your shoulder making sure you were not about to be mugged. Going to bed at night with one ear out for someone breaking in through your window, which did happen to me and thankfully I got out into the hall and asked a neighbor (male) to save me.
Thankfully he did. I had to move and then had to move again and again and finally I left NY.
It sounds worse now though.
All due to poor city leadership.
I lived in the upper west side in the 80s. The area was pretty much gentrified by then. I loved living there. The streets were tree lined, historic buildings, museums, Lincoln Center. And you were between 2 great parks Central Pk and Riverside Pk. I know all these hotels, shops restaurants. sad.
Tsk, tsk. That’s your white privilege talking there, that expectation of personal safety.
I worked in NYC starting in the late 70’s and it was a dump.
I stopped working there in the late 80’s and it was still a dump. New Yorkers just seem to like it that way. Go figure.
Glad I’m not there. I lived there in the 70s and it was a time you walked down the street as if you lived in Calcutta, looking over your shoulder making sure you were not about to be mugged. Going to bed at night with one ear out for someone breaking in through your window, which did happen to me and thankfully I got out into the hall and asked a neighbor (male) too save me.
To me it was amazing how fast the City could flip from good to awful.
The city was all cleaned up, the bums were some place else. It was like a fairy tale, the way we treated. Basically no one would take our money, the citizens saw the Navy Uniform and we treated great.
Flash forward to 1967, there was a garbage strike in the City, and the city smelled and the people had reverted back to New Yorkers.
An rn friend, my wife knew and hand worked with and her Marine Nam Combat wounded vet husband lived in a huge NYC flat, invited us up with our kids to spend a weekend.
He told us not to drive and take the train from NJ and he would meet us at the station. He did and we took a corporate limo to his apartment bldg. He whispered not to say anything and not to ask ?’s in front of the kids. NYC was back to the old NYC.
For the entire visit our host was like he was on watch in Nam. His tough inner city wife was looking around and over her shoulder if we went out of the bldg.
We enjoyed the visit and were glad to get back on the train to head home. Our oldest son 5 years old at that time on the train ride back, said he was uncomfortable in the city,