I always thought New York suffered the most during the 70s. I’m aware about some stories of bankruptcy, arson, looting and how Times Square used to be a prostitution site and Central Park a no-go area. When I think about it, it comes to my mind those “post-apocalyptic” Bronx pics, some movies portrayed there and that iconic pamphlet of “Welcome to the Fear City” made by NYPD.
But recently I discovered how hard the crack epidemic hit NYC during the late 80s and early 90s. It turns out that the highest homicide rate in the city’s history occurred during this period as well. Kinda similar to Baltimore nowadays. It seems that few efforts were made back then to manage the “legacy of the 70s”.
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r/AskNYC r/AskHistorians
Crime is one aspect of a city doing poorly, but not the *only* one.
NYC in the late 80s/early 90s was still a pretty rough place, but it was a place seeing renewed investment in parts – The city population grew 3.5% in the 80s, which was the best population gain it had posted since the 1940s.
Every city was hit by the 1980’s epidemic, .. but the 1970’s in my opinion was worse. The 1980’s epidemic happened during a time when things were generally improving, and it was localized more, whereas the 1970’s just sucked everywhere.
The 70s and 80s were definitely bad. My parents were living in Greenwich village in the late 70s early 80s and they both said once the sun set they did not go outside unless absolutely necessary. There are pictures of the Bronx with dead bodies laying in the streets from gang violence that sat there for days because even the NYPD was too scared to go in there and take care of it. It started getting better in the late nineties and today it’s one of the safest cities in the country.
New Yorkers that lived during that time will all give different answers. Some think the city is worse now because it’s lost it’s edge/charm
As a NY’er who grew up during that time, yes the late 1980’s had astronomically high homicide rates, largely due to crack / other drugs.
There are still some areas I wouldn’t recommend to anyone.
The 1970’s were bad because the City went bankrupt, and services were cut. My Dad was laid off from the City (and he was a Union employee) for a couple of months.
I believe the very highest year for robberies was in 1981.
Murder rate was extremely high.
Crime rate was still much lower than many US cities now. Murder rate in St Louis right now is still about 4x what it was in NYC then. (And the analysis of the murder show about the same rate as current country averages of “known to victim” murders. Just pointing it out that it wasn’t all just random victims of street crime.
Lots of it was trashy and run down which added to the unsafe vibe, but it wasn’t some kind of war zone.)
It was a scary shit hole in the ‘70s and’80s. Then, Giuliani took over, and what a difference. Way less crime, no more people pissing and shitting (literally) in the streets.
It was a scary shit hole in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Then, Giuliani took over, and what a difference. Way less crime, no more people pissing and shitting (literally) in the streets.
The ‘80’s was the nadir in a decline that began in the ‘70’s. In the 90’s, when I grew up in NYC, it was still miles, MILES worse than now in terms of crime (although in other ways much more livable for middle-class people), but was clearly on the upswing. So you could really think of it as a parabola.
Note this phenomenon affected many if not most big U.S. cities over the period, in terms of decline, nadir, recovery, in very similar ways.
Waiting for all the self-righteous progressives to crow about how “Giuliani didn’t lower crime”…
As a visitor I can tell you the city was visually different in the late 80’s vs the late 70’s.