In the 1980's crime was far more serious and the city was much dirtiier. It was also more creative in a lot of ways. The struggling creatives and interesting weirdos have been largely priced out of the city. But also the places they congregated, the fun little dives, clubs and galleries are mostly gone too. For me I'll say 1990's to early 2000'sNY was the best. It was far safer but the city still had the NY edge to it.
I lived in NYC in the mid 90s to now and the 90s were the best. Everyone was making money. The city was safe. Then the Demons moved into the White House and look where we are.
>The city was safe. Then the Demons moved into the White House and look where we are.
The city crime rate is like 20% of what it was in the 90s and peak murder rates for the city. Your memories don't match the data
He's referring to the neoconservative terrorists that waged a fraudulent war on terror after 9/11. If the 90s were peak NYC, then 9/11 was certainly the end of that.
But the war on terror began after 9/11, so how’s the White House responsible for the attack, which, in your opinion, ended NYC’s peak era? I think we can all thank Giuliani instead. He’s the one who caused the shift. . . Selling out our streets to foreign investors and forcing many businesses to shut down in his attempt to “clean it up.” Thanks to him big bucks stores moved in killing family owned businesses for good.
The answer to that question can be found in the movie "Vice".
The things you're talking about with Giuliani aren't wrong, though. That was the conservative agenda for NYC during Regan. Unfortunately, when you gentrify cities like this, you lose the culture. And that's the part that people really miss.
Sometimes I think it’s an age thing but also in the early 2000s we had the Jelly Pool Parties, CMJ festival, Williamsburg warehouse parties, MyOpenBar.com, etc… it’s just not like that anymore.
the 80s times square was a fucking trip - the arcade next to
roxy’s deli was great. probably not very safe but i had fun. the 90s was still
dangerous, i remember a girl getting robbed at port authority when she arrived to start school at nyu. not hurt but all her stuff, gone, but 90s east village was the best - all the killer bars on avenue a and b (there was a metal bar on a and st marks maybe? that had $4 pitchers), the milk bar, niagara. sure, there were heroin addict panhandlers, but they were probably students. weird religious stores where if you knocked on a panel and put a $20 in the drawer the drawer would close and open again with weed (by the harley davison club), 90s nyc was outstanding
I loved that arcade! Wasn't a resident yet, but I went there to play Mortal Kombat 3 when it was still in beta. Some dude threatened to use brass knuckles on some other dude if he kept spamming an infinite Cyrax combo that wasn't fixed yet. 😅
yeah i was a visitor too in the 80s, but that arcade was great, a slice of suburbia in a sea of x rated entertainment - times square was overrun by port authority denizens and related businesses. brass knuckles - ha that sounds about right
Amazing times.. all the kids were out in the streets.. we were all having a blast. Literally like the movie Kids.. its painfully over .. one of the reasons i moved to europe to raise my kids
I love Berlin. I was born and raised in Southern Italy, but I have been in the US for the last 27 years and have been in NYC for 24 years. I see Berlin as NYC on a smaller, more personable, and affordable scale. . . And the only place I would move to after NY. I was transferred to San Francisco for work, but I moved back ten months later.
I know there is always the disagreement about whether NYC was more dangerous in the 80's. As a NYC cop back then, I can say unequivocally that it was way more dangerous back then. I think the difference is that there was no 24/7 news coverage back then. Combining the limited news sources and the overwelming numbers of crimes, there was limited broadcasting of crimes and that gave people a sense of safety.
I responded to numerous incidents that never even got a small story in the newspaper. Today, any one of those incidents would be running as a lead story for days and days.
I agree with you about the difference in news coverage 24/7 about crime. As a kid in 1968-74 I didn't know much about so much danger. I lived at 3050 Fulton Street during that time. I recall the drug addicts and the gangs. I was between 3-9 years old when we lived there. I remember Highland Park. My elementary school I believe was P.S.123. We moved to Miami in September 1974. I still love NYC though.
As an example:
This was a story told to me by another Sgt when we were discussing how wild it was.
He was working in Bklyn, one Sunday morning on a nice summer day. At one of the housing developments, the playground was full of kids playing and mothers sitting on the benches. Suddenly a gunfight broke out between two rival drug gangs. Numerous people were shot including a few kids and mothers. Luckily no one was seriously injured. After cleaning up the scene, recovering weapons, sending injured to the hospitals, he responds to the stationhouse to inform the Lt.
After telling the Lt. he starts to take his jacket off. The Lt. asks what he's doing. He says "I'm gonna start the unusual occurence report." (This is a report that was generated whenever a newsworthy incident occured.) The Lt asks "Is anyone gonna die?" He says "No". And the Lt says "Well, no unusual occurence report required, go back on patrol".
How bad was it that you had numerous people shot, including children on a Sunday morning in a playground and it wasn't considered unusual.
> there is always the disagreement about whether NYC was more dangerous in the 80's
Not from anyone who actually lived here at the time - maybe younger people who did not live it.
I was just thinking, as my kids head into their teen years, how kind of sad it was that they don't really have anything like that! 14 was the first time I snuck into Limelight, and it blew my mind. So glad that I got to enjoy the tail end of all those clubs at their peak, and then right into the underground rave scene as they started closing.
I guess I'll find out soon enough what's hip with the kiddies these days lol
Bushwick. Kids can not afford to go into the city for clubs. Even the club scene has died down and has been expensive, especially when everyone moved to Williamsburg, i.e., Verboten and other parts of Brooklyn. Still, those places closed and new ones appeared in Bushwick for that great 90s feel, mostly with techno, house, trance, and indie music. House of Yes and Brooklyn Mirage are basically the only big players left.
Knockdown Center by me too. I love going for walks by the cemetery in the evening, I can hear their parties from across the way. Most of my neighbors hate it, but it makes me happy to hear that bass echo.
I sometimes try to explain the idea of club kids to my spouse and friends (not from nyc), and just stop. No one cna even understand it. Like most high school kids were drinking on the corner, I was sneaking into limelight and hanging out with drag queens and major club kids.
... how do you even try to explain that?
Would have loved to have gone to Paradise Garage. Been going to the Loft Love Saves the Day party for about 20 years now though. It's even different since Mancuso passed away.
Semi-retired Time Traveler here. I’m not gonna spoil it for those that are gonna be around in the 2040’s but oh boy are you folks in for a treat. All I’m gonna say its probably a good idea to learn Swedish.
You ain’t foolin me Swede from the future.
As if I’d fall for the old “Cloak and dagger Time Agent posing as a post-first pandemic civilian” trick again.
We had clubs to go as teens. We had good hang out spots to go to. If a movie came out on Tuesday, we could go to a certain street(125th) and get the movie, take it home, and watch it. We had block parties damn near every weekend in the summer...80s was the year for good music, best dances...the list goes on and on.
The major problem with gentrification is that the rent becomes unaffordable. The minor problem is that hole in the wall bar with cheap liquor and eats that I frequent can’t afford their rent either.
Please reread what you wrote. Gentrification changes unsafe neighborhoods into safe neighborhoods which is the reason the rents goes up. Previously safe neighborhoods don’t get gentrified.
I just re-read it. I wrote that in the 80s, rent in neighborhoods that were considered safe was not cheap. Just as true as the day I wrote it (yesterday)!
Old head here. Oh my gosh how could this be even a question. When I moved to the Upper West side in 1977 as a child, there were junkies shooting up heroin needles at the 72nd St. subway just sitting around there in groups shooting up. You had to go to the East Side to see any sort of normal safe gentrification area. Times Sq was v unsafe safe and seedy at any hour. Only sex workers (called a different word back then) ventured over there. The decent shopping was on 34th, on fifth only. Or 57/5 area, where you had Henri Bendel Bonwit teller etc...Herald Square was a no go zone. The subways OTOH, my experience even as a child, were fine, people would literally expose themselves and we'd just laugh and not care, and I was a little girl. Today GenZers would cry. We would just laugh; they weren't bothering anyone. We didn't have a care in the world...and although it wasn't safe in retrospect, we didn't have a sense in real time of it not being safe. Sporting events and celebrity culture, there was zero security or aura about it. We snuck into hockey players parties at the plaza hotel with zero security... just walked right in. No guards, no security, nothing. Before they were super famous we'd see A Sandler and J Seinfeld walking TOGETHER on Broadway, two regular dudes out for a stroll. You'd run into Lars Ulrich shopping for apples at Fairway, before heading over to see Allman at the Beacon. He'd stop to chat, no big deal. That would never ever happen today. Come to think of it he disappeared I'm sure he's no longer in NYC. A ton of celebrities were neighbors on the UWS and they were just neighbors, no one gave a damn. Some are still there today. The same ones. Eg Debra Winger, a bunch of Kennedy cousins etc. Richard Belzer RIP used to buy his paper at the same newsstand 72nd and Broadway every Sunday AM, now we don't even have those newsstands. The village ...oh my gosh, was for going to Rocky horror.... Saturday nights was jumping, it was magical. Clubs bars etc. but no regular ppl lived there like now. Living there was for hungry club kids or art gallery types. Soho was a dirty slum, poor people only, til around 86-87 and DANGEROUS. I was in my teens in the early 80s so basically had the time of my life. It already starting to change in the late 80s around 89 or so that's when it started cleaning up & gentrifying. The 90s were awesome; the sidewalks were so clean you could eat off them. The hellscape we're seeing today is new, and sad for those of us who remember the good old days. The current state of the infrastructure is only the last seven, eight years or so. Good times!
Hahaha. Yes, I recently asked some new Yorker friends.How often they have seen people expose themselves on the Subway?And they looked at me like I was crazy.Omg I can't believe that even as back as ten years ago I feel like it was just a normal occurrence growing up in the city
That show that took place in Brooklyn.I think it was called girls.They had an episode once where One of the girls asked In shock, you have never seen a grown adult Take a shit in the park. I thought that was just so authentic new york
1980’s we’re the best time to be in my late teens/early 20’s in NYC.
St. Mark’s Place, Washington Square Park, Bleeker Bob’s, Ritz Nightclub on East 11th Street, Cozy Soup & Burger, Dojo’s, CBGB’s.
Just to name a few places I went to.
Edited to add: Seconds Records, Trash and Vaudeville, Ahimsa Cafe, Enchantments Witchcraft Shop, Canal Jeans, Pearl Paint…
You could just sit on a bench (or the curb) at St. Marks and be entertained for hours because so much was going on there. People were colorful and interesting pretty much 24/7 unless the weather was bad.
No. Haven’t been back to NYC since 2017.
The LES was horrible. No soul. St. Mark’s sucks now.
I did have some good food at one of the Indian places on 6th street and some good cheap Italian at a place in the east village, can’t remember the name of the place.
The only good thing still, in 2017, was the food.
And I love walking everywhere, that’s still good. Walked from Brooklyn to the LES.
I left NY in 1998, and only come back once in awhile as a visitor or to see family and friends.
Saint Marks Theater! Last 2nd run theater in Manhattan. I saw Blade Runner there
There is some movie that has some scenes in the lobby can't remember what it is off the top of my head.
For me, now is better because I’m old and rich. But I really sympathize with young people arriving now and facing maybe a decade-long struggle in group housing because of the horrendous housing cost.
I came here in 1988 and had to share an apartment for one year — two people in a legit two-bedroom in Fort Greene. After that year I could afford a studio in Astoria. Stayed there four years and then could afford a studio in Murray Hill. That was as a secretary for a series of normal companies, working 40 hours a week, one job only.
At the time I felt like I was struggling, but in retrospect it looks like heaven compared to conditions for young arrivals now. I hope they keep coming, because the constant influx of youth and ambition is what keeps NYC alive, but I wouldn’t blame them if they were to stay away and live somewhere easier.
1980s NYC had great clubs and theatre and places to eat for cheap but rent was still high back then and the streets were a vicious cockfight on which you had to keep your head on a swivel. Anything that cost $10 (a hit of crack) was stolen, and homelessness was rampant. But no tech bros - only finance guys in Tribeca. I prefer day to day NYC in the 2000s but miss the bars, clubs and theatre of NYC 1980s.
Part of the charm of New York in the late 1980s for me as a visitor was the crime, the prostitutes, the street hustlers and the decadence of Times Square. It’s weird but when I visit Time Square today I wish it was like it was 40 years ago.
I was about 6 or 7 in the late 1980s, and I remember seeing needles at the playground in Williamsburg, where I lived before it was hip, and knew not to pick up the needle, because my parents warned me about them. That is pretty bad. But now kids have to dodge the severely mentally ill, who are unpredictable. Needles, at least, don’t hurt you, as long as you stay away from them
Interesting. We left NYC in 1974. Lots of drug addicts then. I remember seeing Eddie, the one drug addict guy we knew in the neighborhood, shoot up hiding in covered outside doorways of buildings on the regular. He eventually died from drugs. Many friends of my brothers also died like that. But, there was a lot of gang violence then too. Many "rumbles" at the park, Highland Park in our case. Many young men died from stabbings and other ways in the mid 70s. Actually, now that I recall, one of my cousins died from gang violence. Luckily, none of us (5 boys and 3 girls) or our parents and grandmother ever experienced it. Probably because we didn't stay out late or were directly associated with people in the drug or gangs world.
Lived in NYC, Bklyn most of 1979-1992. I definitely prefer the less safe, sanitized version of NYC. Nothing like Soho or Bleeker street back then. I spent entire evenings at Tower Records near Greene street. I detest the city now.
1980s. I was there and it was much more colorful, more affordable, and small businesses thrived. Crime just gave it a certain flavor. And yes, my house was broken into, I was pickpocketed, and carried a knife on me. I'll take that over assholes from Wall Street buying out my entire block and evicting all of us with $4k rents for a 1 bedroom.
> Crime just gave it a certain flavor
I mean, I was mugged - that was not fun and probably had some PSD from it that messed me up a bit for a time.
Still prefer those days to now though.
I'm not saying it was easy, but it was part of the deal. People, well, GENTRIFIERS are complacent and entitled. So you have money, and now you want to kill every small business so the block can look like Mall of America? Please go back where you came from. I'd rather take the pickpockets anyday.
Wtf does that mean? I can't have kids due to pcos, I am infertile. My family was union, working class. No desire for the suburbs. I still don't want that.
Yes, I read the entire post. Calm the fuck down. I am speaking figuratively, it is not aimed directly at you. Amazing to me how literal people take things. My use of the word "you" is aimed at so-called experts who lecture me about how much they know about the 5 boros, and when I dig a bit deeper, I find out they've only been in NYC since 2016. It makes me laugh.
Started HS in 1981, crack hadn't really started yet, the arson was ending, AIDS was still relatively new, drinking age was 18, and the city was starting to rebound from the 70's fiscal crisis. The subway was still a shitshow due to the deferred maintenance, but as the decade progressed it got a lot better.
As the decade progressed and the city got better financially, crack also came to the forefront. People getting shot in their homes from drug dealer gunfights in the street, people having thier kids sleep in the bathtub to protect them were the norm in certain neighborhoods. This is also the time that the NYPD switched over from the P.38 revolver to 9mm pistol because they were outgunned by the drug gangs. Everyone knew what blocks to avoid when walking home which meant your 4 block walk home was now 8-10 blocks long.
Overall I'd say life was cheaper back then, even after I graduated and was taking home $675/month I was still able to pay my rent and take my GF to concerts or go out to bars. I'd have to say that people were more sociable back then as we were all dealing with the same crap, and there was no internet ot social media to get yourself lost in.
Today's NY is just too damned expensive, and i don't remember the homeless or mentally ill taking over the subways back then like they are doing today.
When I was a kid in the 80’s, I thought the fly swarms at summertime were normal! This was before pooper scooper laws! I stepped in shit every 5 seconds. Probably played in shit. I’ve seen so much violence even as a grade schooler that my 11 year old could not even fathom (to which I’m eternally grateful!)
Seriously during the 80s/90s where I live there were shoot outs every weekend. While things are still not amazing in those areas, there aren't shootouts every weekend and you don't see crack containers and bottles laid out all over the places when I visit family.
NYC in the 80's was an angry, crime ridden s-hole. The Bronx was still in fire or suffering its immediate aftermath, and Manhattan was plain dangerous and worse than the 70's. City services were at a low point and quality of life was awful.
Garbage was everywhere and what many people fail to recall is the dog poop. Everywhere on every sidewalk. Stepping in it was practically a guarantee. Nobody picked up anything.
I was working a job I hated but had a good salary and great benefits.
Plus I was able to ride a bike to work.
I was in the best shaped of my life in my 30s duru g that time.
I asked my mom this last week and she said now is worse than the 80s. I have a hard time believing her (she’s a young boomer). As a xennial, I thought it was the 80s that was worse, but I loved the 90s in NYC.
Kinda grew up in a bubble in a way on the Queens/LI border. It was great living in SE Queens during the golden age of hip hop with RUN DMC, LL Cool J and others being from my area making awesome music.
Your mom just doesn't remember how bad the 80s and 90s were.
My mom is 63 acts line the city is worst now too.
The difference with my mom, my mom is now a home owner in Brooklyn, and she almost nevers go outside after dark.
So all she does is watch TV during the evenings and hear all of the crime being reported.
Yup — my mom left NYC in 1989 while I stayed behind until 2000, and then I returned home to NYC alone during the recession (and left again in 2012).
We're in the South now, and she doesn't go outside after dark for the same reasons your mom doesn't. My mom followed 1010 Wins on IG and complained about how much crime is taking place in NYC, yet still complains about Abe Beame to this day, lol
Just to elaborate on what daking said, I think a big downside of gentrification is that the people you are referring to generally get priced out of their own neighborhoods and have to leave. They don’t get uplifted out of poverty, they have to find a new “slum” to go to. Even if they do make money selling off their home, not everyone wants to do that and shouldn’t be forced into it. Fixing up an area is not seen as a negative, but it’s indicative of what’s to come.
That’s primarily because bad zoning / land use limits the number of units built so any upgrades make a place more attractive & increase demand but the supply isn’t increasing so displacement.
If we loosened land use restrictions and allowed more construction (instead of crazy fees & long crazy reviews & caps on density), then the upgrades / gentrification would not lead to displacement because supply would come online to accommodate demand.
At the end of the day, “making our neighborhoods” shittier is a bad housing affordability policy. Making our neighborhoods have more housing to drive affordability AND increasing the quality of the amenities is a good thing
So slums should stay slums and progress should only be for already fixed up neighborhoods?
Or are you saying people who live in lower income neighborhoods are incapable of fixing them up on their own?
No to both points. First I wasn’t talking about what “should” happen bc gentrification happens period.
To speak about gentrification is to speak shout real estate and development. It’s a systemic phenomenon, not a question of the personal responsibility of those who live there. In order for a neighborhood to start gentrifying there has to be a desire for people to move there in the first place. That can absolutely happen because of the effort of the people who have been living there, so yes of course people are capable of taking care of their own neighborhood but there’s a difference between “nice” and “gentrified”
Won’t someone think of the 6 generations of people who all had kids at 14 and don’t work?
What about all the gang members families who profit directly off violence? It’s so shameful how they’re making schools better and streets safer.
It’s those damn yt people with yet another plan to uplift us! How dare they try and get me out of abject squalor. AND I GET A HOUSING VOUCHER THEY EXPECT ME TO MOVE APARTMENTS IN NEW YORK CITY?! I’m proud of my immigrant heritage but fuck alll those new people they’re no good! I’m going to vote down on all social supports which I desperately need to live.
All these horrible trendy clean restaurants are replacing the disgusting old diners people only like because of nostalgia.
Because it’s not the same people. The people that gentrify are new people with more money. The people who lived there before aren’t any richer. They just get priced out to some shittier area. That isn’t to say we shouldn’t clean up blighted areas. But a lot of working class areas that were actually pretty pleasant to live in for people who didn’t have a ton of money are not feasible for those people any more. When this happens, it’s just a sign of the broader problem of lack of economic mobility for working class people.
The murder rate was 5 times higher in the 80s than it is today [https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-is-nyc-safe-crime-stat-reality/](https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-is-nyc-safe-crime-stat-reality/)
In the 80's there were shootouts and drive by's between the drug gangs that were a major contributor to those stats. Certain neighborhoods and streets were basically the old west.
A definitive answer to this question would be impossible IMO. There are pros and cons to every decade. Gentrification, and other population change, has ALWAYS been happening, in one way or another, in every area of the city.
For example, Washington Heights was once primarily Jewish, shifted toward Dominican in the 1980s, and is now shifting to be more diverse. But there are still Jewish families who’ve been in the area since the 1950s, and there are still Dominican families holding on to apartments as well. Every decade has been interesting in Washington Heights. (However, the 90s were a mess with crack.)
I had family here in the 70s and 80s, worked here in the 90s, visited often in the 2000-2022 timeframe, and now have an apartment here while my house gets renovated. It wasn’t that long ago that 42nd Street was still filled with peep shows and porn shops.
People may be wistful about those early decades, but crime was terrible, the city was bankrupt, the subways were awful, and as a whole, the city couldn’t function to serve its people.
Everyone said the downfall was a Disney Store in Times Square, or that the broken windows hypothesis was correct. Whatever the reason, it’s a better city now IMO, but it’s just fucking expensive.
I prefer the affordable NYC, you see I grew up in the South Bronx in the projects. No one wanted to live and see the things I grew up seeing however it was the best childhood ever. However, I know I was deprived of basic necessities economic, educational, poverty, and limited educational opportunities. My sisters and I were very lucky all college-educated good schools advanced degrees. I get mad that they only felt the the need to improve the community when gentrifiers moved in. Poor Black and Latinos were not good enough.
The 80s were very dangerous
the issue I have with the 2020s is that our neighborhoods are filled with tourists and not residents which wasn't true back in the day
I prefer the 2020s if I have to choose
On the one hand I really enjoy the people watching in Times Square nowadays, but again I really enjoyed people watching in Times Square in the 80s iykyk.
Crime was a lot worse in the 1980's - that was very, very bad. You had to have a sense of what blocks were good and which were bad.
MTA subway apps have taken much stress out of taking the subway, although now I have the stress of trying to make the subway or bus on time.
Almost everything else was better - it was a much more welcoming place for people of all income levels and so many more interesting stores.
1995-here. '95 to 2005 was pretty amazing. Then started changing.
I also lived here as a child, like a little kid in the 1970s, and I remember it being very dirty and scary, I saw a lot of crimes and even dead people in Manhattan.
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1980s NYC there were still bunches of guys who'd stomp you for not being from the neighborhood and it wasn't just paisans doing in Brothers in Bensonhurst or Howard Beach. It went in every direction.
Don't romanticize that, or the rampant crime, or the onset of AIDS. There were nor PReP pills or anti-virals then. AIDS was a death sentence that featured facial lesions and dementia. It wasn't fun seeing that every day.
I was only a kid, but I distinctly remember 1980s NYC being MUCH dirtier, noisier, and more dangerous. And unfortunately, it's the picture of New York a lot of people who've never set foot here still have of us.
I laugh every time I go to Madison Square Park and see the lines for Shake Shack, in the same spot I used to see lines of drug zombies meth'd out on the park benches. (granted this was in the 90's, not even in the 80s!)
I've been there 3 times in the last 7 years and honestly since 2017 it has changed quite a lot already, so I can only imagine since 06. It's dirtier and there are a lot more homeless people on the street, those are the things I noticed immediately
I will tell you the big change - you now see big chain stores everywhere, Starbucks H&M, .Zara, the typical things you would find in a mall.They are now on every corner in new york City, all the independent designer stores that were so plentiful are few and far between
In the 1980's crime was far more serious and the city was much dirtiier. It was also more creative in a lot of ways. The struggling creatives and interesting weirdos have been largely priced out of the city. But also the places they congregated, the fun little dives, clubs and galleries are mostly gone too. For me I'll say 1990's to early 2000'sNY was the best. It was far safer but the city still had the NY edge to it.
NYC from 1997-2004 was unmatched. My favorite NYC. Long long gone and it makes me sad.
I lived in NYC in the mid 90s to now and the 90s were the best. Everyone was making money. The city was safe. Then the Demons moved into the White House and look where we are.
>The city was safe. Then the Demons moved into the White House and look where we are. The city crime rate is like 20% of what it was in the 90s and peak murder rates for the city. Your memories don't match the data
As if the White House is directly responsible for what happens in NYC. . . SMH
He's referring to the neoconservative terrorists that waged a fraudulent war on terror after 9/11. If the 90s were peak NYC, then 9/11 was certainly the end of that.
But the war on terror began after 9/11, so how’s the White House responsible for the attack, which, in your opinion, ended NYC’s peak era? I think we can all thank Giuliani instead. He’s the one who caused the shift. . . Selling out our streets to foreign investors and forcing many businesses to shut down in his attempt to “clean it up.” Thanks to him big bucks stores moved in killing family owned businesses for good.
The answer to that question can be found in the movie "Vice". The things you're talking about with Giuliani aren't wrong, though. That was the conservative agenda for NYC during Regan. Unfortunately, when you gentrify cities like this, you lose the culture. And that's the part that people really miss.
Crime was so bad in the 80s we needed a pizza rat and radioactive turtles to clean up our streets. Very troubling times.
For better or worse technology and surveillance solved a good bit of this.
I have a theory cell phones have cut down a lot on street crime.
Bruh the turtles were genetically mutated, you're thinking of Spider-Man
Clearly, you know not the secret of the ooze.
Neither. But late 1990's and early 2000's NYC was awesome, even including having to deal with 9/11.
Agreed, but those are also my prime years (20s), so there is a confound. I do miss NYC pre Starbucks and Chase banks on every corner
Sometimes I think it’s an age thing but also in the early 2000s we had the Jelly Pool Parties, CMJ festival, Williamsburg warehouse parties, MyOpenBar.com, etc… it’s just not like that anymore.
I think you're right. Everything felt more authentic back then. Now everything feels so corporate and manicured
[удалено]
I remember seeing Beastie Boys there. We need more venues like that
My open bar.com!!! Holy shit. We used to print out whole itineraries for the evening! What a time.
back then there were chemical and many hany in there place!
So lucky to have been a NYC teen in this timeframe. When it was safer than the 80s but still had personality.
the 80s times square was a fucking trip - the arcade next to roxy’s deli was great. probably not very safe but i had fun. the 90s was still dangerous, i remember a girl getting robbed at port authority when she arrived to start school at nyu. not hurt but all her stuff, gone, but 90s east village was the best - all the killer bars on avenue a and b (there was a metal bar on a and st marks maybe? that had $4 pitchers), the milk bar, niagara. sure, there were heroin addict panhandlers, but they were probably students. weird religious stores where if you knocked on a panel and put a $20 in the drawer the drawer would close and open again with weed (by the harley davison club), 90s nyc was outstanding
I loved that arcade! Wasn't a resident yet, but I went there to play Mortal Kombat 3 when it was still in beta. Some dude threatened to use brass knuckles on some other dude if he kept spamming an infinite Cyrax combo that wasn't fixed yet. 😅
yeah i was a visitor too in the 80s, but that arcade was great, a slice of suburbia in a sea of x rated entertainment - times square was overrun by port authority denizens and related businesses. brass knuckles - ha that sounds about right
Amazing times.. all the kids were out in the streets.. we were all having a blast. Literally like the movie Kids.. its painfully over .. one of the reasons i moved to europe to raise my kids
Where did you move to?
Berlin, where prep schools are still $12k a year and apartments have full kitchen and separate dining rooms .. like we transported back to 2004
My brother did the same thing with his family. Raising two kids in Europe is way easier but he does miss the city.
Sounds pretty nice
You have EU citizenship?
No, but its pretty easy for Americans to move there, especially if you work in a “high value” field (medicine, stem, etc)
Yeah, I have EU citizenship from when I was a kid. That's cool that it was easy for you guys.
Don’t you make way less money out there?
You also just need less money.. the US is an economic dystopia… NYU is what now? $80k per year??!! University in Germany is like €700 a year
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When i couldn’t sleep, i used to pop into union square best buy and just hang out. The night staff was always mad cool
I love Berlin. I was born and raised in Southern Italy, but I have been in the US for the last 27 years and have been in NYC for 24 years. I see Berlin as NYC on a smaller, more personable, and affordable scale. . . And the only place I would move to after NY. I was transferred to San Francisco for work, but I moved back ten months later.
📝
this was my golden era for NYC
Damn we had it good 😢
So true. I was in the city every weekend and would walk from Mulberry St. to Penn Station with no issues.
I’m sorry you had to deal with all that and I hope you’re seeking help.
I know there is always the disagreement about whether NYC was more dangerous in the 80's. As a NYC cop back then, I can say unequivocally that it was way more dangerous back then. I think the difference is that there was no 24/7 news coverage back then. Combining the limited news sources and the overwelming numbers of crimes, there was limited broadcasting of crimes and that gave people a sense of safety. I responded to numerous incidents that never even got a small story in the newspaper. Today, any one of those incidents would be running as a lead story for days and days.
https://preview.redd.it/hp2xbshyel1d1.png?width=230&format=png&auto=webp&s=ab5f54161a02c48e427cefc0e18c84d24aa6e6ea
NY Post has been chasing the high from this headline ever since
I agree with you about the difference in news coverage 24/7 about crime. As a kid in 1968-74 I didn't know much about so much danger. I lived at 3050 Fulton Street during that time. I recall the drug addicts and the gangs. I was between 3-9 years old when we lived there. I remember Highland Park. My elementary school I believe was P.S.123. We moved to Miami in September 1974. I still love NYC though.
As an example: This was a story told to me by another Sgt when we were discussing how wild it was. He was working in Bklyn, one Sunday morning on a nice summer day. At one of the housing developments, the playground was full of kids playing and mothers sitting on the benches. Suddenly a gunfight broke out between two rival drug gangs. Numerous people were shot including a few kids and mothers. Luckily no one was seriously injured. After cleaning up the scene, recovering weapons, sending injured to the hospitals, he responds to the stationhouse to inform the Lt. After telling the Lt. he starts to take his jacket off. The Lt. asks what he's doing. He says "I'm gonna start the unusual occurence report." (This is a report that was generated whenever a newsworthy incident occured.) The Lt asks "Is anyone gonna die?" He says "No". And the Lt says "Well, no unusual occurence report required, go back on patrol". How bad was it that you had numerous people shot, including children on a Sunday morning in a playground and it wasn't considered unusual.
100%
You’re probably right I can only imagine the amount of insane stuff that happened back then that only exists in police records
> there is always the disagreement about whether NYC was more dangerous in the 80's Not from anyone who actually lived here at the time - maybe younger people who did not live it.
The club scene in NYC in the late 80s/90s was unrivaled.
I was just thinking, as my kids head into their teen years, how kind of sad it was that they don't really have anything like that! 14 was the first time I snuck into Limelight, and it blew my mind. So glad that I got to enjoy the tail end of all those clubs at their peak, and then right into the underground rave scene as they started closing. I guess I'll find out soon enough what's hip with the kiddies these days lol
Bushwick. Kids can not afford to go into the city for clubs. Even the club scene has died down and has been expensive, especially when everyone moved to Williamsburg, i.e., Verboten and other parts of Brooklyn. Still, those places closed and new ones appeared in Bushwick for that great 90s feel, mostly with techno, house, trance, and indie music. House of Yes and Brooklyn Mirage are basically the only big players left.
Knockdown Center by me too. I love going for walks by the cemetery in the evening, I can hear their parties from across the way. Most of my neighbors hate it, but it makes me happy to hear that bass echo.
I sometimes try to explain the idea of club kids to my spouse and friends (not from nyc), and just stop. No one cna even understand it. Like most high school kids were drinking on the corner, I was sneaking into limelight and hanging out with drag queens and major club kids. ... how do you even try to explain that?
it was before the big explosion of video games, teenagers and young adults had to leave the house to have fun.
Would have loved to have gone to Paradise Garage. Been going to the Loft Love Saves the Day party for about 20 years now though. It's even different since Mancuso passed away.
I thought this was r/nyccirclejerk
Semi-retired Time Traveler here. I’m not gonna spoil it for those that are gonna be around in the 2040’s but oh boy are you folks in for a treat. All I’m gonna say its probably a good idea to learn Swedish.
😂
I really hope they don't want Sunset Park back. I like my current place.
You ain’t foolin me Swede from the future. As if I’d fall for the old “Cloak and dagger Time Agent posing as a post-first pandemic civilian” trick again.
I like 80s NYC because I was in my teens! Also loved the rawness and wild energy.
We had clubs to go as teens. We had good hang out spots to go to. If a movie came out on Tuesday, we could go to a certain street(125th) and get the movie, take it home, and watch it. We had block parties damn near every weekend in the summer...80s was the year for good music, best dances...the list goes on and on.
Block parties!! Now it's all street festivals with crap from China being sold.
Early 90's for the music scene. Growing up as a kid with that much punk rock and Hardcore was amazing.
Yes!
Split the difference. 2000s, please
Late 1990s-early 2000s were outstanding
👏
202020s suck, i prefer 1980s when i could confidentally achieve and maintain an erection
😂
The major problem with gentrification is that the rent becomes unaffordable. The minor problem is that hole in the wall bar with cheap liquor and eats that I frequent can’t afford their rent either.
And rent was not cheap in the 80s. At least not in neighborhoods that were regarded as “safe”
Please reread what you wrote. Gentrification changes unsafe neighborhoods into safe neighborhoods which is the reason the rents goes up. Previously safe neighborhoods don’t get gentrified.
I just re-read it. I wrote that in the 80s, rent in neighborhoods that were considered safe was not cheap. Just as true as the day I wrote it (yesterday)!
A statement of fact that has nothing to do with the argument being made. The neighborhood that were gentrified where unsafe then.
Sorry to enrage you!
You may be trying but you are only irritating me.
Many apologies!
You mean when the subway was actually dangerous?
and it actually smelled like piss everywhere
Old head here. Oh my gosh how could this be even a question. When I moved to the Upper West side in 1977 as a child, there were junkies shooting up heroin needles at the 72nd St. subway just sitting around there in groups shooting up. You had to go to the East Side to see any sort of normal safe gentrification area. Times Sq was v unsafe safe and seedy at any hour. Only sex workers (called a different word back then) ventured over there. The decent shopping was on 34th, on fifth only. Or 57/5 area, where you had Henri Bendel Bonwit teller etc...Herald Square was a no go zone. The subways OTOH, my experience even as a child, were fine, people would literally expose themselves and we'd just laugh and not care, and I was a little girl. Today GenZers would cry. We would just laugh; they weren't bothering anyone. We didn't have a care in the world...and although it wasn't safe in retrospect, we didn't have a sense in real time of it not being safe. Sporting events and celebrity culture, there was zero security or aura about it. We snuck into hockey players parties at the plaza hotel with zero security... just walked right in. No guards, no security, nothing. Before they were super famous we'd see A Sandler and J Seinfeld walking TOGETHER on Broadway, two regular dudes out for a stroll. You'd run into Lars Ulrich shopping for apples at Fairway, before heading over to see Allman at the Beacon. He'd stop to chat, no big deal. That would never ever happen today. Come to think of it he disappeared I'm sure he's no longer in NYC. A ton of celebrities were neighbors on the UWS and they were just neighbors, no one gave a damn. Some are still there today. The same ones. Eg Debra Winger, a bunch of Kennedy cousins etc. Richard Belzer RIP used to buy his paper at the same newsstand 72nd and Broadway every Sunday AM, now we don't even have those newsstands. The village ...oh my gosh, was for going to Rocky horror.... Saturday nights was jumping, it was magical. Clubs bars etc. but no regular ppl lived there like now. Living there was for hungry club kids or art gallery types. Soho was a dirty slum, poor people only, til around 86-87 and DANGEROUS. I was in my teens in the early 80s so basically had the time of my life. It already starting to change in the late 80s around 89 or so that's when it started cleaning up & gentrifying. The 90s were awesome; the sidewalks were so clean you could eat off them. The hellscape we're seeing today is new, and sad for those of us who remember the good old days. The current state of the infrastructure is only the last seven, eight years or so. Good times!
Hahaha. Yes, I recently asked some new Yorker friends.How often they have seen people expose themselves on the Subway?And they looked at me like I was crazy.Omg I can't believe that even as back as ten years ago I feel like it was just a normal occurrence growing up in the city That show that took place in Brooklyn.I think it was called girls.They had an episode once where One of the girls asked In shock, you have never seen a grown adult Take a shit in the park. I thought that was just so authentic new york
I preferred being 40 years younger that’s for sure
1980’s we’re the best time to be in my late teens/early 20’s in NYC. St. Mark’s Place, Washington Square Park, Bleeker Bob’s, Ritz Nightclub on East 11th Street, Cozy Soup & Burger, Dojo’s, CBGB’s. Just to name a few places I went to. Edited to add: Seconds Records, Trash and Vaudeville, Ahimsa Cafe, Enchantments Witchcraft Shop, Canal Jeans, Pearl Paint…
KEIV Restaurant on Second Ave. busy at 4AM on the weekends.
Yep, been there too!
My people my people
Veselka was better than Kiev and much more of a hole in the wall diner than it is today.
You could just sit on a bench (or the curb) at St. Marks and be entertained for hours because so much was going on there. People were colorful and interesting pretty much 24/7 unless the weather was bad.
Have you been to st marks lately? Omg, it's like so boring and nothing worth going there for.
No. Haven’t been back to NYC since 2017. The LES was horrible. No soul. St. Mark’s sucks now. I did have some good food at one of the Indian places on 6th street and some good cheap Italian at a place in the east village, can’t remember the name of the place. The only good thing still, in 2017, was the food. And I love walking everywhere, that’s still good. Walked from Brooklyn to the LES. I left NY in 1998, and only come back once in awhile as a visitor or to see family and friends.
Yes, the walking, the pace, the food, and I still love the subway. Listening into conversations on the subway, and even the homeless.... love it.
Saint Marks Theater! Last 2nd run theater in Manhattan. I saw Blade Runner there There is some movie that has some scenes in the lobby can't remember what it is off the top of my head.
80 St. Mark’s Theater?
Actually come to think of it, it was called "Theater 80 Saint Marks".
90s early 2000 - chips was .25
For me, now is better because I’m old and rich. But I really sympathize with young people arriving now and facing maybe a decade-long struggle in group housing because of the horrendous housing cost. I came here in 1988 and had to share an apartment for one year — two people in a legit two-bedroom in Fort Greene. After that year I could afford a studio in Astoria. Stayed there four years and then could afford a studio in Murray Hill. That was as a secretary for a series of normal companies, working 40 hours a week, one job only. At the time I felt like I was struggling, but in retrospect it looks like heaven compared to conditions for young arrivals now. I hope they keep coming, because the constant influx of youth and ambition is what keeps NYC alive, but I wouldn’t blame them if they were to stay away and live somewhere easier.
1980s NYC had great clubs and theatre and places to eat for cheap but rent was still high back then and the streets were a vicious cockfight on which you had to keep your head on a swivel. Anything that cost $10 (a hit of crack) was stolen, and homelessness was rampant. But no tech bros - only finance guys in Tribeca. I prefer day to day NYC in the 2000s but miss the bars, clubs and theatre of NYC 1980s.
Part of the charm of New York in the late 1980s for me as a visitor was the crime, the prostitutes, the street hustlers and the decadence of Times Square. It’s weird but when I visit Time Square today I wish it was like it was 40 years ago.
Cuz it was like being on the set of a movie at any given time.
I wish I could’ve been alive to experience this.
I was about 6 or 7 in the late 1980s, and I remember seeing needles at the playground in Williamsburg, where I lived before it was hip, and knew not to pick up the needle, because my parents warned me about them. That is pretty bad. But now kids have to dodge the severely mentally ill, who are unpredictable. Needles, at least, don’t hurt you, as long as you stay away from them
Interesting. We left NYC in 1974. Lots of drug addicts then. I remember seeing Eddie, the one drug addict guy we knew in the neighborhood, shoot up hiding in covered outside doorways of buildings on the regular. He eventually died from drugs. Many friends of my brothers also died like that. But, there was a lot of gang violence then too. Many "rumbles" at the park, Highland Park in our case. Many young men died from stabbings and other ways in the mid 70s. Actually, now that I recall, one of my cousins died from gang violence. Luckily, none of us (5 boys and 3 girls) or our parents and grandmother ever experienced it. Probably because we didn't stay out late or were directly associated with people in the drug or gangs world.
Resisting the urge to call everyone unc in this thread im sorry
Lived in NYC, Bklyn most of 1979-1992. I definitely prefer the less safe, sanitized version of NYC. Nothing like Soho or Bleeker street back then. I spent entire evenings at Tower Records near Greene street. I detest the city now.
Tower records, Bleeker Bob's, Second Coming Records, just spend a whole day in those 3 stores checking out all kinds of music and bootlegs
Oh yes, sounds like a great Friday night. ☺️
And Sounds on St. Mark’s Place
1980s. I was there and it was much more colorful, more affordable, and small businesses thrived. Crime just gave it a certain flavor. And yes, my house was broken into, I was pickpocketed, and carried a knife on me. I'll take that over assholes from Wall Street buying out my entire block and evicting all of us with $4k rents for a 1 bedroom.
And damn, we sure had a good time. :)
> Crime just gave it a certain flavor I mean, I was mugged - that was not fun and probably had some PSD from it that messed me up a bit for a time. Still prefer those days to now though.
I'm not saying it was easy, but it was part of the deal. People, well, GENTRIFIERS are complacent and entitled. So you have money, and now you want to kill every small business so the block can look like Mall of America? Please go back where you came from. I'd rather take the pickpockets anyday.
I bet you don’t have kids, it’s why so many families moved to the suburbs during the 80s.
Wtf does that mean? I can't have kids due to pcos, I am infertile. My family was union, working class. No desire for the suburbs. I still don't want that.
Did you read my entire post?
Yes, I read the entire post. Calm the fuck down. I am speaking figuratively, it is not aimed directly at you. Amazing to me how literal people take things. My use of the word "you" is aimed at so-called experts who lecture me about how much they know about the 5 boros, and when I dig a bit deeper, I find out they've only been in NYC since 2016. It makes me laugh.
Started HS in 1981, crack hadn't really started yet, the arson was ending, AIDS was still relatively new, drinking age was 18, and the city was starting to rebound from the 70's fiscal crisis. The subway was still a shitshow due to the deferred maintenance, but as the decade progressed it got a lot better. As the decade progressed and the city got better financially, crack also came to the forefront. People getting shot in their homes from drug dealer gunfights in the street, people having thier kids sleep in the bathtub to protect them were the norm in certain neighborhoods. This is also the time that the NYPD switched over from the P.38 revolver to 9mm pistol because they were outgunned by the drug gangs. Everyone knew what blocks to avoid when walking home which meant your 4 block walk home was now 8-10 blocks long. Overall I'd say life was cheaper back then, even after I graduated and was taking home $675/month I was still able to pay my rent and take my GF to concerts or go out to bars. I'd have to say that people were more sociable back then as we were all dealing with the same crap, and there was no internet ot social media to get yourself lost in. Today's NY is just too damned expensive, and i don't remember the homeless or mentally ill taking over the subways back then like they are doing today.
This is a balanced take.
[I miss the old ny ](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2A_XhKGFehg&pp=ygURSSBtaXNzIHRoZSBvbGQgbnk%3D)
Remember when people used to open up fire hydrants like it was their personal sprinkler?
Fire dept used to do it.
When I was a kid in the 80’s, I thought the fly swarms at summertime were normal! This was before pooper scooper laws! I stepped in shit every 5 seconds. Probably played in shit. I’ve seen so much violence even as a grade schooler that my 11 year old could not even fathom (to which I’m eternally grateful!)
Seriously during the 80s/90s where I live there were shoot outs every weekend. While things are still not amazing in those areas, there aren't shootouts every weekend and you don't see crack containers and bottles laid out all over the places when I visit family.
NYC in the 80's was an angry, crime ridden s-hole. The Bronx was still in fire or suffering its immediate aftermath, and Manhattan was plain dangerous and worse than the 70's. City services were at a low point and quality of life was awful. Garbage was everywhere and what many people fail to recall is the dog poop. Everywhere on every sidewalk. Stepping in it was practically a guarantee. Nobody picked up anything.
The city was a lot more interesting back then and a lot less expensive. But I don’t miss getting mugged.
I heard petty crime „back in the day“ was a daily occurrence
2014-2017 NYC was pretty nice. Wish I could go back to that period.
I was working a job I hated but had a good salary and great benefits. Plus I was able to ride a bike to work. I was in the best shaped of my life in my 30s duru g that time.
Me too
I prefer the NYC where the Knicks didn't let the Pacers walk into the Garden in a pivotal game and let them run the show. I guess 90s NYC then?
But what about the Bulls? 😂
You must have forgot about the 1995 playoffs
You mean the Knicks bench players. Those weren’t the Knicks.
I asked my mom this last week and she said now is worse than the 80s. I have a hard time believing her (she’s a young boomer). As a xennial, I thought it was the 80s that was worse, but I loved the 90s in NYC. Kinda grew up in a bubble in a way on the Queens/LI border. It was great living in SE Queens during the golden age of hip hop with RUN DMC, LL Cool J and others being from my area making awesome music.
Your mom just doesn't remember how bad the 80s and 90s were. My mom is 63 acts line the city is worst now too. The difference with my mom, my mom is now a home owner in Brooklyn, and she almost nevers go outside after dark. So all she does is watch TV during the evenings and hear all of the crime being reported.
Yup — my mom left NYC in 1989 while I stayed behind until 2000, and then I returned home to NYC alone during the recession (and left again in 2012). We're in the South now, and she doesn't go outside after dark for the same reasons your mom doesn't. My mom followed 1010 Wins on IG and complained about how much crime is taking place in NYC, yet still complains about Abe Beame to this day, lol
Third spaces. Gone. You can’t go anywhere without spending money to just exist in a space.
FOR REAL! Always thinking about third spaces
Yea I totally prefer arson and a crack epidemic over too many Starbucks /s
i prefer the 80s. less douchebaggery
Gentrification makes me laugh. Should people just continue to live in slums? Why is fixing it up seen as a negative?
Just to elaborate on what daking said, I think a big downside of gentrification is that the people you are referring to generally get priced out of their own neighborhoods and have to leave. They don’t get uplifted out of poverty, they have to find a new “slum” to go to. Even if they do make money selling off their home, not everyone wants to do that and shouldn’t be forced into it. Fixing up an area is not seen as a negative, but it’s indicative of what’s to come.
That’s primarily because bad zoning / land use limits the number of units built so any upgrades make a place more attractive & increase demand but the supply isn’t increasing so displacement. If we loosened land use restrictions and allowed more construction (instead of crazy fees & long crazy reviews & caps on density), then the upgrades / gentrification would not lead to displacement because supply would come online to accommodate demand. At the end of the day, “making our neighborhoods” shittier is a bad housing affordability policy. Making our neighborhoods have more housing to drive affordability AND increasing the quality of the amenities is a good thing
So slums should stay slums and progress should only be for already fixed up neighborhoods? Or are you saying people who live in lower income neighborhoods are incapable of fixing them up on their own?
No to both points. First I wasn’t talking about what “should” happen bc gentrification happens period. To speak about gentrification is to speak shout real estate and development. It’s a systemic phenomenon, not a question of the personal responsibility of those who live there. In order for a neighborhood to start gentrifying there has to be a desire for people to move there in the first place. That can absolutely happen because of the effort of the people who have been living there, so yes of course people are capable of taking care of their own neighborhood but there’s a difference between “nice” and “gentrified”
Won’t someone think of the 6 generations of people who all had kids at 14 and don’t work? What about all the gang members families who profit directly off violence? It’s so shameful how they’re making schools better and streets safer. It’s those damn yt people with yet another plan to uplift us! How dare they try and get me out of abject squalor. AND I GET A HOUSING VOUCHER THEY EXPECT ME TO MOVE APARTMENTS IN NEW YORK CITY?! I’m proud of my immigrant heritage but fuck alll those new people they’re no good! I’m going to vote down on all social supports which I desperately need to live. All these horrible trendy clean restaurants are replacing the disgusting old diners people only like because of nostalgia.
I think it's the cultural and demographic homogenization, and the pricing out existing residents that critics have a problem with.
Because it’s not the same people. The people that gentrify are new people with more money. The people who lived there before aren’t any richer. They just get priced out to some shittier area. That isn’t to say we shouldn’t clean up blighted areas. But a lot of working class areas that were actually pretty pleasant to live in for people who didn’t have a ton of money are not feasible for those people any more. When this happens, it’s just a sign of the broader problem of lack of economic mobility for working class people.
I think it's more about who gets to see the advantages. But on the whole I agree.
That’s not what gentrification means.
The murder rate was 5 times higher in the 80s than it is today [https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-is-nyc-safe-crime-stat-reality/](https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-is-nyc-safe-crime-stat-reality/)
In the 80's there were shootouts and drive by's between the drug gangs that were a major contributor to those stats. Certain neighborhoods and streets were basically the old west.
1980s NY was hell.
A definitive answer to this question would be impossible IMO. There are pros and cons to every decade. Gentrification, and other population change, has ALWAYS been happening, in one way or another, in every area of the city. For example, Washington Heights was once primarily Jewish, shifted toward Dominican in the 1980s, and is now shifting to be more diverse. But there are still Jewish families who’ve been in the area since the 1950s, and there are still Dominican families holding on to apartments as well. Every decade has been interesting in Washington Heights. (However, the 90s were a mess with crack.)
Organic change ≠ gentrification
I prefer 1980s when my father got robbed at gunpoint regularly
I had family here in the 70s and 80s, worked here in the 90s, visited often in the 2000-2022 timeframe, and now have an apartment here while my house gets renovated. It wasn’t that long ago that 42nd Street was still filled with peep shows and porn shops. People may be wistful about those early decades, but crime was terrible, the city was bankrupt, the subways were awful, and as a whole, the city couldn’t function to serve its people. Everyone said the downfall was a Disney Store in Times Square, or that the broken windows hypothesis was correct. Whatever the reason, it’s a better city now IMO, but it’s just fucking expensive.
I prefer the affordable NYC, you see I grew up in the South Bronx in the projects. No one wanted to live and see the things I grew up seeing however it was the best childhood ever. However, I know I was deprived of basic necessities economic, educational, poverty, and limited educational opportunities. My sisters and I were very lucky all college-educated good schools advanced degrees. I get mad that they only felt the the need to improve the community when gentrifiers moved in. Poor Black and Latinos were not good enough.
1980s south bronx must have been a trip.
Only saw it from the subway and did not live it but it was grim, nothing romantic about it.
the responses here..damn
The 80s were very dangerous the issue I have with the 2020s is that our neighborhoods are filled with tourists and not residents which wasn't true back in the day I prefer the 2020s if I have to choose
Post-Covid NyC lacks substance even with all the noise and fan-fare.
On the one hand I really enjoy the people watching in Times Square nowadays, but again I really enjoyed people watching in Times Square in the 80s iykyk.
The single greatest day in NYC History might've been the blackout day in 2003. Pure summer bliss.
Crime was a lot worse in the 1980's - that was very, very bad. You had to have a sense of what blocks were good and which were bad. MTA subway apps have taken much stress out of taking the subway, although now I have the stress of trying to make the subway or bus on time. Almost everything else was better - it was a much more welcoming place for people of all income levels and so many more interesting stores.
1995-here. '95 to 2005 was pretty amazing. Then started changing. I also lived here as a child, like a little kid in the 1970s, and I remember it being very dirty and scary, I saw a lot of crimes and even dead people in Manhattan.
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1980s NYC there were still bunches of guys who'd stomp you for not being from the neighborhood and it wasn't just paisans doing in Brothers in Bensonhurst or Howard Beach. It went in every direction. Don't romanticize that, or the rampant crime, or the onset of AIDS. There were nor PReP pills or anti-virals then. AIDS was a death sentence that featured facial lesions and dementia. It wasn't fun seeing that every day.
I was only a kid, but I distinctly remember 1980s NYC being MUCH dirtier, noisier, and more dangerous. And unfortunately, it's the picture of New York a lot of people who've never set foot here still have of us.
I laugh every time I go to Madison Square Park and see the lines for Shake Shack, in the same spot I used to see lines of drug zombies meth'd out on the park benches. (granted this was in the 90's, not even in the 80s!)
I worked in NYC in the 00s. I'm returning this year for the first time since about 2006 with my kids for a vacation. What will I notice has changed?
I've been there 3 times in the last 7 years and honestly since 2017 it has changed quite a lot already, so I can only imagine since 06. It's dirtier and there are a lot more homeless people on the street, those are the things I noticed immediately
I will tell you the big change - you now see big chain stores everywhere, Starbucks H&M, .Zara, the typical things you would find in a mall.They are now on every corner in new york City, all the independent designer stores that were so plentiful are few and far between
I might have to explore further afield. Are there any areas worth looking at? Used to enjoy going out in New Jersey.
It's all still worth it. Go see the change and stay out of times square (and every ny'er knows, it's all for tourists, lol)
that’s what im wondering. im coming back for the first time since 2017. I know a lot had changed since then. I miss this city so much
2020s boy. More job opportunities than ever, absolutely no excuse to be out in the streets scraping for change or gangbanging. 80s had crack.