Why the 1970s in New York were a total dumpster fire and people have desperately tried to forget that decade
Welcome to my newsletter where you get a PG glimpse into what I google over the course of the month. Sans cults and serial killers.
Let’s touch on the 1970’s in New York City, arguably one of it’s darkest decades in the 20th century, an unrecognizable city to what we know now. Popular culture has remembered the 1970’s as a time of social unrest largely in lieu of the Vietnam War, but for New York this was a time highlighted by the flight of the middle class, a loss of 500,000 manufacturing jobs leading to massive unemployment, and widespread, horrific crime
The catalyst was the nationwide recession in 1973 that hit New York the hardest, squashing its industrial sector. By 1975, New York had over one million welfare recipients and was shelling out more than it received in state and federal taxes. In turn, the city fell into a complete state of decay. Landlords abandoned buildings, fires were rampant, and crime was omnipresent: the number of murders in the city had more than doubled in a decade, from 681 in 1965 to 1,690 in 1975. Car thefts doubled, rapes tripled, and robberies went up an astonishing tenfold.
In June 1975, the city laid off 15,000 workers, including thousands of cops and 1,600 firefighters – 20% of the city’s entire force. By September, 45,000 workers had been laid off – the unions reacted with rage, best captured in garbagemen going on strike, leaving 48,000 tons of trash to fester on sidewalks all of June.
As the city teetered on bankruptcy in the end of 1975, President Ford begrudgingly granted New York a bailout of $2.3 billion but it took time for the city to get to an acceptable state of normalcy. In 1977, New York experienced a 25-hour citywide blackout that led to widespread looting and arson. When all available police were ordered to respond, 40% of the off-duty force (which had shrank from more than 42,000 police officers to less than 27,000) refused to show up, a result of the escalating animosity between the police union and the city.
To illustrate the level of perceivable violence, visitors were advised not to venture outside of midtown Manhattan, not to take the subways under any circumstances, and not to walk outside anywhere after 6pm. Below are copies from pamphlets that were dispersed throughout the city and at airports for incoming tourists:
Explore more so that I don’t continue this monologue ad nauseam:
Click here for a comprehensive gallery of unbelievable visuals from 1970’s NYC
A montage from Mashable showing the degree of urban decay the city suffered
Thorough article detailing the timeline of how things unraveled to pure anarchy