Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

New York in the 70s/80s

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    #76
    New York in the 70s/80s

    Tubby Isaacs wrote: It's the second most depressing I've seen, after Nil By Mouth. You seen that?

    What does it in each case is the ending.

    edit- did you see the spoiler? Hope not.

    It's here if you ever feel too happy.

    Don't worry, I've seen it. Yes, exceedingly grim.

    Comment


      #77
      New York in the 70s/80s

      My cod modern history has the sixties ending at Altamont (which I see was Dec 1969). I suppose this film coming out in 1971 means it was pretty quick off the mark.

      I bet you saw it at the time.

      Comment


        #78
        New York in the 70s/80s

        Renart wrote:
        Originally posted by Tubby Isaacs
        It's the second most depressing I've seen, after Nil By Mouth. You seen that?

        What does it in each case is the ending.

        edit- did you see the spoiler? Hope not.

        It's here if you ever feel too happy.

        Don't worry, I've seen it. Yes, exceedingly grim.
        I'm relieved.

        The actress who plays the mother (Gary Oldman's sister, Leila Morse) ended up in EastEnders, our second most popular sitcom.

        Comment


          #79
          New York in the 70s/80s

          @Tubby

          I think so. Pauline Kael thought it "worthy" but basically "a drag" (very sixties.) I guess I'd have gone along with that too. I remember thinking it very actorish, it was probably the first time I saw Raul Julia and Paul Sorvino in anything.

          Comment


            #80
            New York in the 70s/80s

            Tubby Isaacs wrote: The actress who plays the mother (Gary Oldman's sister, Leila Morse) ended up in EastEnders, our second most popular sitcom.
            Ha, those kinds of transitions can be jarring.

            Not quite the same thing, but I recently watched Wattstax, and one of the angry, militant young black men they interview between songs I immediately recognized, to my amazement, as Ted Lange, who played Isaac the Bartender in eighties TV schlock-fest, The Love Boat.

            Comment


              #81
              New York in the 70s/80s

              Also Bill Cosby: from funky cigar man to the jumper guy.

              Comment


                #82
                New York in the 70s/80s

                Tubby Isaacs wrote: The actress who plays the mother (Gary Oldman's sister, Leila Morse) ended up in EastEnders, our second most popular sitcom.
                Interesting take...

                Comment


                  #83
                  New York in the 70s/80s

                  Ha, ha. I meant soap opera, didn't I?

                  Some 1980s South Bronx to a funky soundtrack. The tune which starts after 4 mins is one of the greatest things I've ever heard.



                  There are a few white people about. Were they likely to have been with the film crew?

                  Comment


                    #84
                    New York in the 70s/80s

                    How good or bad were the mayors of NYC?

                    Comment


                      #85
                      New York in the 70s/80s

                      No idea, but 'the Bronx is Burning' has a lot on how Ed Koch wangled the democratic nomination in 1977 and the politics of the city. Was looking at this wiki page on the election, and its stunning to see how in that election, the Republicans got 4% of the vote, but have held the mayoralty for 5 terms now. That's some turn around.

                      Comment


                        #86
                        New York in the 70s/80s

                        Thanks.

                        This is interesting.

                        A 982-page report from the Securities and Exchange Commission blamed Beame's mismanagement for the city's financial mess, which his opponents seized on as an electoral issue.[4]
                        I thought he inherited a big deficit from Lindsay and balanced the books, amid the chaos and decline.

                        Crime continued going up under Koch, didn't it?

                        Comment


                          #87
                          New York in the 70s/80s

                          That was one hell of a close primary. 4 candidates within 3.25%

                          Why did so many Puerto Ricans show up in the South Bronx when it was collapsing? How bad was Puerto Rico?

                          Comment


                            #88
                            New York in the 70s/80s

                            Tell me about Al Sharpton. He's not coming across terribly well from some of the stuff I read. I'm assuming he's Reverend Bacon in the Bonfire of the Vanities.

                            Comment


                              #89
                              New York in the 70s/80s

                              Yet another question. 1993 mayoral election. Dinkins did very badly in Staten Island and Queens. I know he lost loads of Jewish support after Crown Heights, but why did he do so badly in those boroughs?

                              Why, when crime was falling, did Guliani's law and order talk work against Dinkins?

                              Comment


                                #90
                                New York in the 70s/80s

                                Tubby Isaacs wrote:
                                Some 1980s South Bronx to a funky soundtrack. The tune which starts after 4 mins is one of the greatest things I've ever heard.


                                Hell yeah, never heard that before. Fierce. Wuf Ticket - 'The Key' (Kevorkian dub):

                                Comment


                                  #91
                                  New York in the 70s/80s

                                  Can't link to music at the minute but is the YouTube in question the actual track, South Bronx, by BDP?

                                  Comment


                                    #92
                                    New York in the 70s/80s

                                    Nah, they start with Kurtis Blow's 'If I Ruled The World' (could never get into that) then it's Wuf Ticket. Stupid name, awesome track.

                                    Comment


                                      #93
                                      New York in the 70s/80s

                                      I thought Wuf Ticket were the band. The song is The Key.

                                      edit- duh. Leaving that in as evidence of my bad speed reading.

                                      You still got the Larry Levane thing you did for me? I lost it when my old computer packed up.

                                      Comment


                                        #94
                                        New York in the 70s/80s

                                        Yeah, probably buried on a hard drive somewhere. Remind me to smoke it out soon.

                                        Comment


                                          #95
                                          New York in the 70s/80s

                                          Brilliant.

                                          Feel quite proud I introduced you to a song you hadn't heard.

                                          Comment


                                            #96
                                            New York in the 70s/80s

                                            Tubby Isaacs wrote: That was one hell of a close primary. 4 candidates within 3.25%

                                            Why did so many Puerto Ricans show up in the South Bronx when it was collapsing? How bad was Puerto Rico?
                                            Well it wasn't really collapsing when they showed up. The South Bronx was very middle-class in the 50s and early 60s, mostly Jewish and some Italians, Irish and Germans*. The problem is the Puerto Ricans came for jobs that weren't there anymore; the manufacturing jobs which were unionized and paid a solid wage were all leaving New York for the South, the West Coast and sometimes overseas. They didn't really have the skills to start higher up on the food chart and unless they got city jobs they were usually stuck on welfare or forced to turn to crime. Also, instead of being located in tenements across the hall from Mrs Leibowitz and her two kids they often got thrown into the urban renewal influenced projects, which segregated them and prevented any sort of community from rising up and acting as a support structure for people coming in. Plus white flight and all that, which stripped all the remaining money out of the neighborhood.

                                            Tubby Isaacs wrote: Thanks.

                                            This is interesting.

                                            A 982-page report from the Securities and Exchange Commission blamed Beame's mismanagement for the city's financial mess, which his opponents seized on as an electoral issue.[4]
                                            I thought he inherited a big deficit from Lindsay and balanced the books, amid the chaos and decline.

                                            Crime continued going up under Koch, didn't it?
                                            He wasn't really balancing the books, more hiding the deficits off the balance sheet. He did indeed inherit a big mess from Lindsay, who refused to cut welfare spending in the face of a citywide recession, and he deserves credit for being the man who eventually said we need a bailout, but he wasn't going to solve anything on his own. Crucially he had lost the confidence of the bond markets.

                                            Crime did continue to go up under Koch, which feeds into your next point:

                                            Tubby Isaacs wrote: Yet another question. 1993 mayoral election. Dinkins did very badly in Staten Island and Queens. I know he lost loads of Jewish support after Crown Heights, but why did he do so badly in those boroughs?

                                            Why, when crime was falling, did Guliani's law and order talk work against Dinkins?
                                            Well Dinkins lost badly in Staten Island in 89 and 93, primarily because Staten Island is much more conservative than the other boroughs, and it has a lot of Italians who don't like blacks. To be as blunt as possible about it. So a black guy never had a chance when his opponent was Italian.

                                            The Crown Heights riot, which Dinkins is reputed to have bungled (I can't really find the deeper story about that), played its role. A lot of Jews lost confidence in Dinkins and that really turned the election, which was won by a very thin margin by Giuliani. Also, although crime did start to go down during Dinkins's administration, it had gone up for the first 2.5 years (and hit its all-time high in early '92) of his 4 year term, perhaps giving people the wrong impression in spite of the facts.

                                            That said, Dinkins has retroactively won that election. He's been the subject of historical revision several times now, and considering Giuliani's power grabbing and appropriation of 9/11, is now far better regarded by most New Yorkers than Giuliani is. It has become widely known that most of the things Giuliani took credit for (such as the police and Times Square) were instituted by Dinkins, and I've no doubt that if they reran the '93 election today that Dinkins would win by a relatively comfortable margin.

                                            Interestingly, those '89 and '93 elections attracted the two highest totals of voters in recent history. Far higher than recent elections, far higher than the crucial '77 election, the highest since 1969 back when the people were more engaged, I guess, since voting totals then were through the roof.

                                            Comment


                                              #97
                                              New York in the 70s/80s

                                              One thing very different here is that welfare is the responsibility of central government (though some clowns are looking to change that). It's a ridiculous idea that a place hammered by a recession should then have to pay its own unemployment benefit.

                                              Law and Order Koch must have had a lot of mates in the media to win three times with rising crime.

                                              Were the blacks recent arrivals in the South Bronx when the recession hit?

                                              Comment


                                                #98
                                                New York in the 70s/80s

                                                Times Square is incredible to me. Very much like Soho in London, with sex shops and porno theatres everywhere. Soho was tamed by Shirely Porter, who wasn't exactly Einstein. Why couldn't Koch or Beam at least get rid of the porno shops?

                                                Comment


                                                  #99
                                                  New York in the 70s/80s

                                                  Christ, there's always some horror you haven't heard of from New York at that time, isn't there?

                                                  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Land_fire

                                                  This is the worst thing of its sort I can think of from London.

                                                  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerkenwell_cinema_fire

                                                  Comment


                                                    New York in the 70s/80s

                                                    Tubby Isaacs wrote: One thing very different here is that welfare is the responsibility of central government (though some clowns are looking to change that). It's a ridiculous idea that a place hammered by a recession should then have to pay its own unemployment benefit.

                                                    Law and Order Koch must have had a lot of mates in the media to win three times with rising crime.

                                                    Were the blacks recent arrivals in the South Bronx when the recession hit?
                                                    Well the feds pay for most of it but states and cities can and do top up. So when the welfare rolls bloomed, so did NYC's bill.

                                                    I forgot to mention that Lindsay's MO in labor negotiations was to fold like a cheap suit, especially after some incidents (like the transit strike) where he got badly burned. So the city's salary and pension obligations to workers also went way up.

                                                    Koch had his friends in the media - the Post, of course, and the Daily News liked him too - but he was more of a media-friendly type than somebody with friends in the media. He was very careful to present himself as the City's biggest booster and as a genial man with the public (How'm I doin'? was his big catchphrase). Also anti-machine too, though that was later found out to be a lie and contributed greatly to his loss to Dinkins.

                                                    Koch ran to the right of Bella Abzug and Mario Cuomo, but it was three differing shades of liberal, so when Koch became top dog it was pretty easy for him to win huge majorities as the Abzug and Cuomo Democrats folded in behind him. Cuomo was the real media darling, by the way. Throw a penny in a news room and you'll hit somebody capable of typing out a thousand words about why dear Mario was the best president we never had.

                                                    The blacks in the South Bronx came during the war and so got a few years of manufacturing wages in before hitting the breadline but they didn't that much better than the Puerto Ricans overall. One key difference was their language skills enabled them to get city jobs much easier than the Puerto Ricans did, so those city jobs gave blacks a leg up on the Puerto Ricans overall.

                                                    Comment

                                                    Working...
                                                    X