New York in the 70s/80s

[NHH]

New York in the 70s/80s

I was reading Marshall Berman's All That is Solid Melts Into Air and the chapter on Robert Moses was really interesting, particularly on the impact the expressways he built in the outer boroughs and how they fundamentally changed social relations there. Can any of the wise heads from NYC say anything on this subject?

Also, the impression you get from reading the Goodfellas books is that the Mob functioned as a quasi-state for the newly arrived, who hadn't yet had time to become worthy or recognition, protection and advancement by the official state. That comes in time, but the infrastructure of this quasi-state is is still in place. Even by the mid-50s and early 60s, the extortion (taxation) by the mob seems pretty ubiquitous and it what I noted was that the Mob wasn't that secret at all, and actually hard to avoid and keep clear of. Was that the case, and when did it start to change and why?

[jason voorhees]

New York in the 70s/80s

Talking of the Mob, how important are they in 1977?

Like I say when people ask me about the Sopranos, the behaviors and characterizations are so dead-on, that it may as well have been a documentary. However, the murders were not from the late 90s, early 00s, but the late 70s/early 80s.

The biggest thing was that Wall Street and the Federal Government had to make a choice. Does the Mafia get the money - especially gambling money, or do we get the money ? So instead of going to the loanshark, you get credit cards. Instead of playing the numbers, you play the lottery. Instead of a gambling den, you go to Atlantic City.

The RICO statute was passed in 1970, but it wasn't for another 10-15 years when they were able to get it fully functional (such as Philly boss Nicodemo Scarfo being one of the first convicted by an informant who ended up in the witness protection program.)

The other thing, whatever pictures the mafia had of J. Edgar Hoover with a pool boy, he refused the acknowledge the presence of the mafia up until his death in 1972. It took a few years for the machinery to get going from there.

The Atlantic City decision to allow gambling is what led to probably the biggest turf war in 1981, along with the construction boom in NYC with the Zips coming over from Sicily (Giuliani was able to really make inroads on the mafia because they liked blowing up cars like they did back home...which simply didn't fly over here,) the Chickenman getting blown up in Philly (Bruce Springsteen's Atlantic City from the Nebraska album, his real name John Testa,) then Paul Castellano getting all of that construction money and getting popped for showing it off by building a mansion on top of a hill instead of living in a rowhouse like Carlo Gambino.

So yes, 1977 was in many ways a final flameout, with the 60s probably being the high water mark of the mafia's power. Gotti's conviction was the absolute breaking point. I'll disagree with Flynnie about the last 10 years, as the mafia is still dead and stir-fried. Their time has simply passed, until the moment we don't have a federal government that can run a wiretap. As you see in the news, the banksters own all.

Was that the case, and when did it start to change and why?

The case being the widespread use of protection money ? I would assume so. It may have been a contributing factor to the absolute desertion of cities of businesses into the suburbs, especially after the 1967 riots and destruction of urban America. My dad fixed copiers in Paterson and Newark, and Roma Pizza's HQ in Woodbridge. He'd often hear stories of protection money being doled out.

It would've changed with the death of the cities, and rise of the suburbs in the late 70s/early 80s. Which leads me to what would be an interesting book about NJ.

The book I've always wanted to read was the battle of New Jerseys soul, between the mafia and Princeton and Rutgers. Hearing the stories, New Jersey was an absolute playpen for the mafia for about 50 years. Then suddenly, within a decade, it became the education state. The mafia still had their businesses, but just as soon as trailer park kids started trading in their long hair and Metallica patches on their denim jackets for Starter Jackets and LA Raiders hats, they went legit. Princeton and Rutgers both had massive real estate booms, of which they are still having.

[Incandenza]

New York in the 70s/80s

1970s urban and environmental decay in Staten Island and Brooklyn:

http://www.businessinsider.com/1970s-pictures-of-urban-decay-in-new-york-2012-6?op=1

Can't believe that there were houses with no type of sewage system back then.

[Tubby Isaacs]

New York in the 70s/80s

I've got to the bit in Caro about Moses' disastrous crosstown expressways.

The detailedbit on the Jewish/black area mucked up by the Cross Bronx Expressway was very interesting. There were already in the 50s very serious social problems associated with poor blacks moving up from the South, and they seem to have been very distinct from the established black residents. Funny, because I keep reading the blacks were fine and dandy till the sixties and all that when lefties told them to have kids out of wedlock and bunged them welfare checks. And it must be true, because there's a black man who says it himself!

Living amid a building site wouldn't improve anybody, but it would be very interesting to know how many of those social problems had been in poor black communities in the South.

Cheers, Jason. You've been outstanding. Excellent point about protection getting a boost from the riots.

[Vulgarian Visigoth]

New York in the 70s/80s

ursus arctos wrote: Yeah, it was all much more genuine then.

The fact that ESPN didn't exist (and was broadcasting Aussie Rules when it did) helped.

Now, we have Youklis saying that his heart is in New York 24 hours after saying that he'll always be a Red Sox.

Grammatically dubious, but I suppose "I'll always be a Red Sock" sounds weird.

[ursus arctos]

New York in the 70s/80s

Times Square is different now.

Even so, things had settled into a steady, if tense, détente until Friday, when, Mr. Semancik said, Mr. Laird spat in his face.

“You know what? I’m going to hit you. I’m going to hurt you,” Mr. Semancik said, with a steely blue-eyed stare. “Enough is enough. So I walked up and wham — I hit him.”

Mr. Semancik knows how to take care of himself: he said he has an arrest record, including felony convictions. But the box man had a pen in his pocket, and Mr. Semancik ended up with ink-stained puncture wounds on his nose, chin, scalp and chest.

Questioned on Monday, several of the costumed figures — including Buzz Lightyear, Mario, Luigi, Hello Kitty and an assortment of Elmos and Cookie Monsters — seemed puzzled to hear about the violence.

One Cookie Monster shrugged, as if to say he had no information, and offered a hug instead.

Yet if the worlds of the costumed and plain-clothed in Times Square are normally separate, two of the characters found themselves crossing over Friday night: a photograph in The Daily News showed the police interviewing Alien and Predator as witnesses after the incident. (Mr. Semancik said that, far from being adversaries, they are brothers from North Carolina who work together.)

[jason voorhees]

New York in the 70s/80s

Compared to how it used to be, it sounds like the Times Square version of this skit.

Cookie Monster has come in quite handy on long trips. Just a passing glimpse of him on the northeast side of 45th and 7th has been enough to stop any crying.

[Gangster Octopus]

New York in the 70s/80s

Do you not like long trips?

[jason voorhees]

New York in the 70s/80s

I'll tell you, I'd much rather be a kid these days with those booster seats. All my memories of trip to Yonkers was tree tops and storm clouds, and finally I was allowed to take my seat belt off once I saw the wires of the suspension bridge.

[ursus arctos]

New York in the 70s/80s

We've touched on a number of these before, but this collection of "radical infrastructure projects" that never got off the drawing board in NYC is a pleasant diversion.

[ursus arctos]

New York in the 70s/80s

60 minute supercut of film scenes shot on location in 70s and 80s New York.

[caja-dglh]

New York in the 70s/80s

When do you reckon we will start to hear the plans for Madison Square Garden?

[jason voorhees]

New York in the 70s/80s

Great. Only 2 minutes in and now I can't stop thinking about Linda Blair's Twin Towers.

[Tubby Isaacs]

New York in the 70s/80s

Ah my favourite thread is back where it belongs. Thought we'd have to wait a couple of years until Gangster Octopus exhumed it.

I was looking at black poverty rates. They improved considerably from the late 50s onwards- having been around 60%, IIRC.

You don't get much of a sense of improvement reading about New York though- not even before the mid 70s crisis.

[Tubby Isaacs]

New York in the 70s/80s

A late entry from Britain.



Liverpool 8, 1981.

[Reed John]

New York in the 70s/80s

Back to JV's excellent discussion of the fall of the mafia...

Perhaps this has been covered, but didn't their downfall also have to do with getting too much into the drug trade? As Don Corleone said "It's true I have a lot of friends in politics, but they wouldn't be so friendly if they knew my business was drugs instead of gambling which they consider a harmless vice. But drugs, that's a dirty business."

The war on drugs is a disaster, but the long sentences and plus the Len Bias-effect and full-on moral panic of the "Just say no" Reagan era made it harder for police and politicians to let it slide.

I've also read that, since the 70s, cops and DAs have found it easier and easier to find guys to rat on their fellow wise guys. The old code just doesn't have the power that it used to. I don't know if that's because of something the authorities are doing differently or if the "quality," for lack of a better word, of the wise guys declined because the guys in charge got complacent and because the historical recruiting and development systems in the ethnic neighborhoods came undone as more and more of those neighborhood diversified and the Italians dispersed to the suburbs.

"And the bosses were no better. They complained because things don't run smooth.
In my line of work, things don't run so smooth. I'm sorry.
I'm dealin' with degenerate animals out here.
But the bosses, what do they give a fuck?
They're sittin' on their asses drinkin' anisette."

[Tubby Isaacs]

New York in the 70s/80s

I read this book recently.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/City-Sale-Koch-Betrayal-York/dp/0060160608

It's good. Lots of city contract scandals, but despite the title, looks harsh to pin too much of that on Koch. The authors blame him for keeping the old guard, but not sure what else he was supposed to do. Bess Myerson though was his own accident waiting to happen.

Those borough bosses sound like incredibly powerful people.

[Tubby Isaacs]

New York in the 70s/80s

I see Wayne Barrett also wrote a book on Donald Trump's downfall in 1992. Was he getting a bit overexcited?

Noted other investigative journos do that. Tom Bower in his previous Branson book seemed to imply pretty heavily that he was in the shit.

[ursus arctos]

New York in the 70s/80s

The system was designed to facilitate and reward borough-based machines at the time, with the borough presidents forming most of the Board of Estimate, which controlled the budget.

The new system, with an empowered City Council, has changed all that, though local machines still control candidate selection for many positions.

[Tubby Isaacs]

New York in the 70s/80s

That's encouraging. When was the system reformed?

Is the Jack Newfield book on Guliani any good? In that book up there, he and Barrett are very positive about Guiliani the lawyer.

[Tubby Isaacs]

New York in the 70s/80s

I bought it anyway.

[Flynnie]

New York in the 70s/80s

Welcome to Fear City.

[ursus arctos]

New York in the 70s/80s

Ah, dem were de dayz.

[Flynnie]

New York in the 70s/80s

I love the Albert Shanker mentions, I think we discussed him in previous pages about how the Jews became white (I think on page 7) in the Brownsville teachers' strike of 1968.

I was mildly disappointed by Mad Men more or less passing up the opportunity to discuss the decline of New York, which was underway under Lindsay, in the past few seasons.

Along with the '69 Mets, though one of Peggy's underlings had a Mets hat on in his last scene.

[ursus arctos]

New York in the 70s/80s

Full text of the pamphlet here, for anyone interested.

The PBA have always been a piece of work, with much of the membership (and virtually all of the leadership) having little but contempt for the areas they are supposed to police.