1980's New York City - better or worse than today?

bo0li5eumx12kp · 25-08-2020 09:07PM #1

Seems to have lost any character.

Back in 80's, well....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvtFcK8BaY8

Too much character, that was it's problem back then.

Opinions on this city?

I honestly think it's totally overhyped, primarily a product of American inflationism and Hollywood.

A concrete and commute nightmare, and it certainly never sleeps cause of its awesome nightlife, more so because you spend so long commuting and so long working, that you never get the chance.

.....

Though honestly I was walking around north side Dublin last week and that other scene from Taxi Driver just popped in my head,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFme5QgpJxo

There's gotta be some kind of happy middle ground, no?

COVID · 25-08-2020 09:42PM

The film 'Taxi Driver'was shot in 1976.

Errashareesh · 25-08-2020 09:48PM

It was a terrible place in the 80s. On the verge of bankruptcy, crime was crazy (only watched a documentary about the Central Park Five the other day which discussed this).

It would have been great if you were wealthy and going to Studio 54 every weekend of course (also just recently watched a documentary about Roy Cohn!) Damn exciting place for art between the Greenwich Village/Beat years and disco though. Gotta be said.

KungPao · 25-08-2020 09:56PM

More of a question for Reddit, no?

I’m sure the vast majority of folk here know shag all about New York City, me included.

I like Seinfeld, if that helps? And Rudy Giuliani was in it too.

I like Rudy.

ongarite · 25-08-2020 09:57PM

It was a crime riden city run by the Mafia who controlled everything from unions, construction and waste management.
Nice if you were rich but horrible for the working class

Jimbob1977 · 25-08-2020 10:02PM

I've seen footage of the New York subway from the 1980s. What a dump!!

Citizens terrified. Guardian Angels formed. Bernhard Goetz goes 'Death Wish' and shoots four robbers on a train.

The five Mafia families ruling the roost. Like Chicago in the Roaring Twenties.

New York seemed to turn the corner in the late 90s.

Errashareesh · 25-08-2020 10:08PM

Photos of the South Bronx from the time look truly shocking. Like a fallout zone.

Gerry Hatrick · 25-08-2020 10:10PM

Jimbob1977 wrote: »

I've seen footage of the New York subway from the 1980s. What a dump!!

Citizens terrified. Guardian Angels formed. Bernhard Goetz goes 'Death Wish' and shoots four robbers on a train.

The five Mafia families ruling the roost. Like Chicago in the Roaring Twenties.

New York seemed to turn the corner in the late 90s.

You can thank Giuliani for that.

cj maxx · 25-08-2020 10:11PM

Jimbob1977 wrote: »

I've seen footage of the New York subway from the 1980s. What a dump!!

Citizens terrified. Guardian Angels formed. Bernhard Goetz goes 'Death Wish' and shoots four robbers on a train.

The five Mafia families ruling the roost. Like Chicago in the Roaring Twenties.

New York seemed to turn the corner in the late 90s.

That’s when I arrived , Guilliani? had did a lot of cleaning it up at that stage. Talking to lads who moved there in the 80’s early 90’s it was a kip. I hung around the lower east side a lot and 10 years earlier it was a no go zone.

Montage of Feck · 25-08-2020 10:13PM

It had a gritty aesthetic that worked really well in late 70's film such as taxi driver, dog day afternoon, the taking of Pelham 123, the warriors etc. but probably a horrible place to actually live in.

bo0li5eumx12kp · 25-08-2020 10:58PM

Montage of Feck wrote: »

It had a gritty aesthetic that worked really well in late 70's film such as taxi driver, dog day afternoon, the taking of Pelham 123, the warriors etc. but probably a horrible place to actually live in.

Well - it's gone from horrible to boring.
I'm just saying for all the bluster, the place is no great shakes.

But the point I was actually trying to make was, Dublin North side - they could start, "cleaning up the scum", and the organized crime and degeneracy that pervades so much of it and sometimes makes it feel like the Dublin City Council have abandoned even attempts at modesty and integrity around those parts.

Can we reincarnate Giuliani and let him work some magic on the north side for, you know - few months at least?

bo0li5eumx12kp · 25-08-2020 11:01PM

KungPao wrote: »

More of a question for Reddit, no?

Not when you're trying to use the image of a run down 80's New York to ridicule what North Dublin is descending into, even as we speak?

Organized crime is the main thing I'm referring to.

chrissb8 · 26-08-2020 03:51AM

Don't know much but was talking to my Dad about it as he visited a friend who moved over to NY at the beginning of the 80's. Basically, as others are posting here, it was a very unsafe place and luckily he had a tour guide in his friend who knew where to go, places to avoid and essentially get a taxi at night.

He also said that this idea of NY having more "character" was BS. Which I'd agree with, I would take boring and safe any day.

bo0li5eumx12kp · 26-08-2020 05:39AM

chrissb8 wrote: »

Don't know much but was talking to my Dad about it as he visited a friend who moved over to NY at the beginning of the 80's. Basically, as others are posting here, it was a very unsafe place and luckily he had a tour guide in his friend who knew where to go, places to avoid and essentially get a taxi at night.

He also said that this idea of NY having more "character" was BS. Which I'd agree with, I would take boring and safe any day.

Me also, however now, despite music producers writing songs singing the praises of NY and all the glamour and excitement, the nightlife blows (basically a few overpriced nightclubs and string of bars around 52nd), it's overcrowded as hell, shopping is relatively weak etc.

I used to read biographies of former pro boxers who came out of gyms in NY and watch old school flicks and NY was described like, some kind of pro-boxing haven.

With Madison square garden being the pro boxing promotion epicenter, I would have totally bought into that but what a dude who grew up in Brooklyn said to me was - his exact words - "NY used to be bad man, but no more. Boxing gyms on every corner etc, all gone";

I could be completely wrong but it sounds like Giuliani did an excellent job at improving the city in many ways, it sounds like he also drained all the fun out of the place.

.....

I think this is because what he did right was, address organised crime primarily.

ceadaoin. · 26-08-2020 02:34PM

Errashareesh wrote: »

It was a terrible place in the 80s. On the verge of bankruptcy, crime was crazy (only watched a documentary about the Central Park Five the other day which discussed this).

.

Going by whats happening there lately it could be heading back there. Crime way up, homeless people everywhere, people openly using drugs, shops and restaurants going out of business left right and centre, apathetic police, people leaving in droves. The pandemic and lockdown has really ****ed NYC.

hynesie08 · 26-08-2020 02:41PM

So you went to manhattan and drank in irish bars and decided new york has no character.......

bo0li5eumx12kp · 26-08-2020 03:25PM

hynesie08 wrote: »

So you went to manhattan and drank in irish bars and decided new york has no character.......

Irish bars?

lolwut?

I didn't go there to mix with the Irish, I went there to get away from that scene, lol.

I realised that it's like a really good looking wedding cake, lots of frosting to make it look glam, but has a decidedly average sponge filling.

It talks a big game, walks fairly dull one.

ceadaoin. wrote: »

Going by whats happening there lately it could be heading back there. Crime way up, homeless people everywhere, people openly using drugs, shops and restaurants going out of business left right and centre, apathetic police, people leaving in droves. The pandemic and lockdown has really ****ed NYC.

Sounds like its true nature is being revealed when put under pressure.

26-08-2020 03:32PM

Big cities are all pretty terrible these days.

Overpriced, gentrified, locals moved out, soul has been ripped from most of them.

From NYC to London, Paris and everywhere. Living on past glories but lacking the essence that made them so special in the first place.

Buford T. Justice XIX · 26-08-2020 03:34PM

Adelina Repulsive Tournament wrote: »

Well - it's gone from horrible to boring.
I'm just saying for all the bluster, the place is no great shakes.

But the point I was actually trying to make was, Dublin North side - they could start, "cleaning up the scum", and the organized crime and degeneracy that pervades so much of it and sometimes makes it feel like the Dublin City Council have abandoned even attempts at modesty and integrity around those parts.

Can we reincarnate Giuliani and let him work some magic on the north side for, you know - few months at least?

Probably best to wait till he's died first, tbh.:P

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudy_Giuliani

bo0li5eumx12kp · 26-08-2020 04:46PM

Deleted User wrote: »

Big cities are all pretty terrible these days.

Overpriced, gentrified, locals moved out, soul has been ripped from most of them.

From NYC to London, Paris and everywhere. Living on past glories but lacking the essence that made them so special in the first place.

Don't know about Paris; London on the other hand was always over rated as hell, just like NYC.

And just like NYC, quality of living there is freaking bogus but its lifeblood is its reputation.

One city that's immune to me is, Amsterdam.

I don't know what that was like back when, but it's got the model that every other try hard glam city needs to follow.

Doesn't have a "north side" - it's pure class from top to bottom.

uRUWLgn.jpg?1

ArnoldJRimmer · 26-08-2020 05:11PM

Definitely the most overrated city on the planet. Its dirty, smelly, overpriced, and the people are exceptionally rude. Don't give me this 'straight talking New Yorker' cr@p, they're just pig ignorant. Good pizza though, I'll give it that

Might be nicer to look at these days than the 1980's, but I won't be returning there in a hurry. There are a ton of way better cities in the US to live in/ visit

the-island-man · 26-08-2020 05:21PM

I've only visited New York once in the summer of 2017 and only stayed for a couple of days. Mainly spent the time in Manhatten although I did walk across the Brooklyn bridge and went through Queens on the way to La Guardia airport. Not sure how qualified I am to answer this!

I left the city thinking was there something I had missed! While Manhatten has the big glitzy sky scrapers I thought it was also a complete kip. Homeless all around the place, the subway is incredibly dilapidated (makes the London Underground look highly advanced), there was trash left on the streets (went to cross the street at one point but realised there was a dirty nappy just off the pavement) and I also thought any food I had there wasn't fresh.

JupiterKid · 26-08-2020 05:27PM

New York between the mid 1960s and the early 1990s was beset by huge problems - urban decay and blight, dysfunctional infrastructure, bankruptcy in the mid 1970s, high crime - much of it violent, murders, mugging, rampant prostitution, drug abuse and rampant corruption. Films like Taxi Driver (1976), Midnight Cowboy (1969), Fame (1980) and Death Wish (1974) capture the essence of the city in serious decline during that period. By 1975 much of the South Bronx was on fire - literally, as property owners used the fires as a means to collect insurance money on their practically worthless buildings.

On the other hand, there was a burgeoning creative scene in New York in the 1970s in the arts and music, with artists and bands like Blondie, Patti Smith, Tom Waits, Billy Joel, Talking Heads and many more emerging. Andy Warhol and his studio The Factory was at the centre of the new arts scene at the time.

The Stonewall riots marked the birth of the modern LGBT rights movement, with the first gay pride held in NYC in 1970. The first Earth Day was also held in 1970. There was a huge power blackout in 1977 and the city rioted and was looted.

The gay scene was booming in the 1970s with the disco clubs such as Studio 54 attracting the zeitgeist of the party circuit.

There are a few very good books about what life was like in NewYork back then - such as City Boy by Edmund White.

From the late 1980s the city started to clean up its act - formerly decaying neighborhoods were sanitised and gentrified, policing was tightened up and crime fell drastically in the 1990s. This was due to a complex combination of factors, but key to this change was a rightward shift in the governance of the city.

New York is a good place to visit and I have been a few times - fantastic entertainment, nightlife, shopping, sights- but I would never live there. Far too big and impersonal for my taste - and New Yorkers are not a friendly bunch in general compared to other cities I’ve visited. San Francisco is my go-to place in the States as I have a few friends based there from when I lived there two decades ago.

murpho999 · 26-08-2020 05:35PM

Adelina Repulsive Tournament wrote: »

Don't know about Paris; London on the other hand was always over rated as hell, just like NYC.

And just like NYC, quality of living there is freaking bogus but its lifeblood is its reputation.

One city that's immune to me is, Amsterdam.

I don't know what that was like back when, but it's got the model that every other try hard glam city needs to follow.

Doesn't have a "north side" - it's pure class from top to bottom.

Well I don't think you don't know Amsterdam that well if you don't think it has its "Northside".

Yes the city centre picturesque but go to Amserdam Zuid Oost or De Bijlmer for reality. Some rough areas and concrete jungles.

No city is perfect.

ShatterAlan · 26-08-2020 05:37PM

ceadaoin. wrote: »

Going by whats happening there lately it could be heading back there. Crime way up, homeless people everywhere, people openly using drugs, shops and restaurants going out of business left right and centre, apathetic police, people leaving in droves. The pandemic and lockdown has really ****ed NYC.

This article pretty much echos what you said:

https://nypost.com/2020/08/17/nyc-is-dead-forever-heres-why-james-altucher/?fbclid=IwAR2jH7P7yf6Yg49jaouObIIETeiReAYCOWvHHN5MHHF3g6AgYyaxfiP_Mc4

Hangdogroad · 26-08-2020 05:39PM

Great music scene there in the late 70s early 80s. It's a cultural desert now.

26-08-2020 05:41PM

Spent three years there in the 80s, parts of Manhattan were dodgy, it’s much better at night now.
It was great to be there at the time though, it wasn’t crazy expensive like it is now, very easy to get work too, a much friendlier city than it is now and the Irish community was very strong.

ShatterAlan · 26-08-2020 05:44PM

murpho999 wrote: »

Well I don't think you don't know Amsterdam that well if you don't think it has its "Northside".

Yes the city centre picturesque but go to Amserdam Zuid Oost or De Bijlmer for reality. Some rough areas and concrete jungles.

No city is perfect.

I laugh when people talk about De Bijlmer being some sort of ghetto. It's about as "ghetto" as Whitehall or Beaumont in Dublin which are both nice areas.

HBC08 · 26-08-2020 05:45PM

The current Tv series The Deuce from the same guy who did The Wire gives a good account of the seedy side of NYC in late 70s early 80s.
Any time ive been there ive really enjoyed it but could never live there.

ShatterAlan · 26-08-2020 05:49PM

I first went to NY for the summer in 1986. Worked for my uncle and stayed in Flushing. I used to wander around Woodside at night and have Chinese food because it was really cheap. But parts of the city were just decrepit. I lived there for 7 years in the 1990's. Worked in Manhattan, lived on Long Island. It was good fun. I was young and had a few quid in my pocket. Was back there for a visit in 2012 and it was crap then. A retirement home for millionaires basically. Overpriced, characterless. Wouldn't care if I never saw the place again.

bo0li5eumx12kp · 26-08-2020 06:06PM

murpho999 wrote: »

Well I don't think you don't know Amsterdam that well if you don't think it has its "Northside".

Yes the city centre picturesque but go to Amserdam Zuid Oost or De Bijlmer for reality. Some rough areas and concrete jungles.

No city is perfect.

You're absolutely correct.

It's not perfect, they have some problems also - in some areas they could do better.

However, I've never been to Bijlmer as one must take the metro its so far outside the central ring.

Point being, whilst they could improve, it's so far ahead of every other supposedly "glam" city there is, it's almost laughable.

What I mean by no "north side" is, the entire central city, it's just so damn beautiful, picturesque, quality of life is phenomenal, easy to get around, and it's a consistent state throughout;

Like Dublin is clearly divided north vs south - with two distinct lifestyles to each.

'Dam seems to blend the best of both - there's no trash, no "billy bad ass" areas where teh bad-boys and teh good-girls-gone-bad hang out; the outcome is splendor.

1980's New York City - better or worse than today?

Comments