New York City in the Nineteen Seventies

[turquino]

I was wondering if someone could shed some light on the reasons for the economic decline and unrest in New York City during the 1970s. Even though no capitalist economy was strong in this period, why was NYC hit so hard in particular? Conservatives blamed welfare and excessively powerful public unions for nearly bankrupting the city, and liberal policies for encouraging social disorder and moral decay. The election of Ed Koch in '77 marked the reaction against the city's postwar social democratic reforms in favor of austerity and law & order governance. Were there other reasons, and was the situation as severe as the political right claimed?

Any reading recommendations or personal accounts would be appreciated, thanks.

[Barry Lyndon]

I was wondering if someone could shed some light on the reasons for the economic decline and unrest in New York City during the 1970s. Even though no capitalist economy was strong in this period, why was NYC hit so hard in particular? Conservatives blamed welfare and excessively powerful public unions for nearly bankrupting the city, and liberal policies for encouraging social disorder and moral decay. The election of Ed Koch in '77 marked the reaction against the city's postwar social democratic reforms in favor of austerity and law & order governance. Were there other reasons, and was the situation as severe as the political right claimed?

Any reading recommendations or personal accounts would be appreciated, thanks.

My parents lived in New York City from 1977-85. It was crazy back then-they had to close down Broadway earlier because there were so many hookers and prostitutes that congregated around there, and only a lunatic walked through Central Park at night, you were guaranteed to get mugged or worse.

As for why it was like that I can't tell, there was a general problem with urban decay that had become apparent by the 1970's, not just New York but in every large American city. One explanation is the fact that by the 1970's the black and Latino revolutionary organizations(the Black Panthers, the Young Lords, etc.) that had been politically organizing oppressed communities in the late 60's had been largely wiped out by FBI and police repression, and into the political vacuum stepped the drug gangs, which greatly escalated the crime, gang violence and social decay.
In New York City it was particularly dramatic because it was a large city I guess.

Just taking a shot, I'm not really sure if that observation is helpful or not.

[x359594]

I lived in New York City from 1974 to 1989. The financial crisis was part of the general contraction of the US economy during that period, but the densely populated NYC was especially hit hard because the federal government cut back aid to cities, and NYC's declining tax base (the well-to-do lived out of town) made it difficult to finance city services such as police, fire dept., street cleaning and many other services.

Mayor Abraham Beame went to Washington to meet with President Ford in a plea for federal assistance, but Ford turned him down. This was reported in a Daily News headline: "Ford to City: 'Drop Dead'." (Late when Carter was campaigning against Ford I saw ads in the subway featuring a sincere-looking Carter saying, "I will not tell the greatest city in America to drop dead.")

A number of libraries were slated for closure including the Ottendorfer Library on Second Avenue. The NYC General membership Branch of the IWW (then located at 119 E. 10th Street nearby) led a successful effort to save the library.

Finally the buccaneer financier Felix Rohatyn came to the City's aid by setting up the Mutual Assistance Corporation (aka Big MAC) that was jump started with a loan from the Teacher's Union that was authorized by Albert Shanker.

Creatively, it was an exciting time. But that's another story.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

I lived in New York City from 1974 to 1989. The financial crisis was part of the general contraction of the US economy during that period, but the densely populated NYC was especially hit hard because the federal government cut back aid to cities, and NYC's declining tax base (the well-to-do lived out of town) made it difficult to finance city services such as police, fire dept., street cleaning and many other services.

Mayor Abraham Beame went to Washington to meet with President Ford in a plea for federal assistance, but Ford turned him down. This was reported in a Daily News headline: "Ford to City: 'Drop Dead'." (Late when Carter was campaigning against Ford I saw ads in the subway featuring a sincere-looking Carter saying, "I will not tell the greatest city in America to drop dead.")

A number of libraries were slated for closure including the Ottendorfer Library on Second Avenue. The NYC General membership Branch of the IWW (then located at 119 E. 10th Street nearby) led a successful effort to save the library.

Finally the buccaneer financier Felix Rohatyn came to the City's aid by setting up the Mutual Assistance Corporation (aka Big MAC) that was jump started with a loan from the Teacher's Union that was authorized by Albert Shanker.

Creatively, it was an exciting time. But that's another story.

As regards this exodus of tax-base to suburban communities, why hasn't the U.S. just enforced metropolitan government already, where the main city of an agglomeration would annex all smaller surrounding communities? I fancy quite a few cities in the Unites States would not be so terribly off (one of the most striking examples being Detroit) had this been done.

[redSHARP]

I got a list:
Low rates of high school graduates
Cops were corrupt and were peddling more smack than the drug dealers
General unemployment still reverberating from the oil embargo
Yankees decided to suck (which for some reason pisses off NYC, and some New Yorkers use it as a way to gauge the city)
lack of opportunity for most working class

[Buffalo Souljah]

As regards this exodus of tax-base to suburban communities, why hasn't the U.S. just enforced metropolitan government already, where the main city of an agglomeration would annex all smaller surrounding communities? I fancy quite a few cities in the Unites States would not be so terribly off (one of the most striking examples being Detroit) had this been done.

This happened in Chicago some years back, where suburbs like Cicero were incorporated into the city during White Flight.

[S.Artesian]

I lived in New York City from 1974 to 1989. The financial crisis was part of the general contraction of the US economy during that period, but the densely populated NYC was especially hit hard because the federal government cut back aid to cities, and NYC's declining tax base (the well-to-do lived out of town) made it difficult to finance city services such as police, fire dept., street cleaning and many other services.

Mayor Abraham Beame went to Washington to meet with President Ford in a plea for federal assistance, but Ford turned him down. This was reported in a Daily News headline: "Ford to City: 'Drop Dead'." (Late when Carter was campaigning against Ford I saw ads in the subway featuring a sincere-looking Carter saying, "I will not tell the greatest city in America to drop dead.")

A number of libraries were slated for closure including the Ottendorfer Library on Second Avenue. The NYC General membership Branch of the IWW (then located at 119 E. 10th Street nearby) led a successful effort to save the library.

Finally the buccaneer financier Felix Rohatyn came to the City's aid by setting up the Mutual Assistance Corporation (aka Big MAC) that was jump started with a loan from the Teacher's Union that was authorized by Albert Shanker.

Creatively, it was an exciting time. But that's another story.

I still live there. We shouldn't abstract this period from the overall period in capitalism, which is truly the period of the bourgeoisie organizing their offensive against the living standards, wage rates, social services that had been won in the post WW2 period. The offensive itself is brought about by a decline in the rate of profit in industry, particularly US industry around 1969.

A strike wave built throughout in the 60s and extended into the 1970s, peaking in the US in 1974. The bourgeoisie were a year ahead in their rolling out of a pre-emptive counterrevolution-- a program marked by 2 singular events-- the oil price rise of OPEC 1, designed to "shock" the working class and create the basis for imposing austerity; and 2, Pinochet's overthrow of Allende-- the political manifestation of "shock and awe-sterity."

NYC caught it in the neck after Lindsay's years of attempting to buy social peace through amassing loans-- and running deficits. With all the cash being spun off by capitalism, it seemed like a good idea...at the time.

Anyway, once the economy started down, what was left for the bourgeoisie to do but try and re-redistribute existing wealth upward-- essentially "de-composing" the social reproduction that had taken place-- so you get the attack on wages, municipal services, library budgets, schools.

What follows was pretty brutal-- with mentally ill persons turned away from any prospect of state funded care, and the conversion of NYC, under the vicious liberalism of Ed Koch, into a safe place to shop-- eventually th city becoming nothing but streets of boutiques in this era of boutique capitalism.

And now...? And now the city is filled with the offspring of those who think they're entitled to a better life than others because they use OPM-- other peoples' money.

It's almost impossible to go into a restaurant in the city on a Friday and Saturday and NOT want to take a huge fire hose and just flush these self-centered, over-compensated, arrogant, ignorant twits into the gutter where they belong.

[RED DAVE]

Basically, the City was deliberately and consciously run into the ground to break the power of the municipal unions, whose leadership cooperated. The social democratic leadership of the teachers union backed Beame, who was the mayor who engaged in mass layoffs after the union bailed the City out with its pension fund. It was hideous to watch the Delegate Assembly of the union vote to support its own hangman.

The process still goes on.

RED DAVE

[Raúl Duke]

My father was in NYC during 78-79, he said there was a lot of drugs going around while he lived in Spanish Harlem (a bilingual white guy in Spanish Harlem...lol) for a bit.

Plus all the urban decay stories like how certain areas of manhatten were filled with hookers, etc.

[RED DAVE]

My father was in NYC during 78-79, he said there was a lot of drugs going around while he lived in Spanish Harlem (a bilingual white guy in Spanish Harlem...lol) for a bit.

Plus all the urban decay stories like how certain areas of manhatten were filled with hookers, etc.The presence of hookers, dealers, etc., was a result of a policy to let the City sink. There are always hookers and drug dealers in New York. When they start to appear in parts of the City, the question is: who is permitting this?

RED DAVE

[S.Artesian]

The presence of hookers, dealers, etc., was a result of a policy to let the City sink. There are always hookers and drug dealers in New York. When they start to appear in parts of the City, the question is: who is permitting this?

RED DAVE

And what are the material conditions that drive more people into prostitution and drug-dealing?

This is going on all over the world-- from Jamaica to Mexico to Russia, to small-town/rural USA with its thousands of meth labs.

What causes it? Who profits? Answer to either one of those questions will answer both.

[RadioRaheem84]

http://whalen.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/fordtonyc.jpg

David Harvey considers NYC in the 70s as the first neo-liberal experiment in the US.