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Why are people so nostalgic about NYC when it was at the height of crime and drug epidemic? I've heard more than once the comments about it "having character". The city was a MESS back then! It was damn near bankrupt with nearly every agency and service corrupt or poorly run. Complain all you want about the "hipsters", "Disneyfication", or loss of "character", but it's a MUCH better and SAFER place today, and I hope it stays that way!
You ever been around a bunch of guys who fought in 'Nam? You ever been at an Alcoholics Anonymous Meeting? Or a group of doctors who just finished their internships at a city hospital?
Point is that people who survive bad times, hard times, will bond with each other. It's the same thing here. It's not nostalgia for the bad times or a wish that things shouldn't have gotten better. Its like survivors reminiscing, remembering, sometimes even laughing a lot about all the s**t they managed to live through. ITs people patting themselves on the back, which considering how bad the city was back then and how they made it through, isnt a bad thing at all I don't think.
You could walk outside n randomly step on crack viles this was the norm n not even in a bad neighborhood to ny standards at that time. Everyday crime seemed like the norm you just hoped you were not a part of it. Some neighborhoods were worse than others of course but living in a nice neighborhood did not mean it was any safer. Times square was a dump filled with pornography shops and drug dealers on every corner, police were as useless as mall cops. Trains were dirty and grafitti not to mention most of the city was grafittied and dirty. U knew u were in a decent area when there was less of it. Even as much of a war zone it seems like it was which it was but people still had regular every day lives and went to work and school n didn't notice much if they didn't really bother anybody.
Why are people so nostalgic about NYC when it was at the height of crime and drug epidemic? I've heard more than once the comments about it "having character". The city was a MESS back then! It was damn near bankrupt with nearly every agency and service corrupt or poorly run. Complain all you want about the "hipsters", "Disneyfication", or loss of "character", but it's a MUCH better and SAFER place today, and I hope it stays that way!
There's some strange beauty to grime.. Weird eh? Too bad it would involve suffering though.
Tompkins Sq park was overrun with homeless people, weird anarchists, and rats.
I was approached several times by girls who couldnt be older than 15 asking me if I wanted to "party."
I was looking for a friend once and accidentally wandered into the headquarters of the Hell's Angels, who had an entire apartment building to themselves.
I guess my street smart kicked in 'cause something didn't feel quite right with all the dogs barking behind closed doors and the rampant smell of weed. I left after a few minutes.
My uptstairs neighbor in my walk up studio -- which now rents for near $2000 a month -- kept trying to seduce me even though I let her know I knew that she was really a man. The beard and Adam's Apple sort of gave it away.
Nobody's building (that I knew) had a lock on the front door.
Two of my friends from then worked in the sex industry and both eventually died of AIDS.
And of course the naked knife-wielding man running down Second Ave covered with blood was one of the high points.
I was friends with a woman who made ends meet by regularly selling her menstrual blood to a witch's coven.
Everybody talked about where they would live if they ever made any money as artists, actors , filmmakers or writers.
And everybody was high nearly all the time.
Tompkins Sq park was overrun with homeless people, weird anarchists, and rats.
I was approached several times by girls who couldnt be older than 15 asking me if I wanted to "party."
I was looking for a friend once and accidentally wandered into the headquarters of the Hell's Angels, who had an entire apartment building to themselves.
I guess my street smart kicked in 'cause something didn't feel quite right with all the dogs barking behind closed doors and the rampant smell of weed. I left after a few minutes.
My uptstairs neighbor in my walk up studio -- which now rents for near $2000 a month -- kept trying to seduce me even though I let her know I knew that she was really a man. The beard and Adam's Apple sort of gave it away.
Nobody's building (that I knew) had a lock on the front door.
Two of my friends from then worked in the sex industry and both eventually died of AIDS.
And of course the naked knife-wielding man running down Second Ave covered with blood was one of the high points.
I was friends with a woman who made ends meet by regularly selling her menstrual blood to a witch's coven.
Everybody talked about where they would live if they ever made any money as artists, actors , filmmakers or writers.
And everybody was high nearly all the time.
That enough?
Very graphic. Tells a lot ... and about how things can REALLY change. Thanks.
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