I have never been so glad that I have moved out of New York City as I am now. Between the through the roof taxes, the rise in crime, the rise in public drug use, the increase in homelessness, and the overall acceptance of lawlessness, we have returned to the Dinkins era in less than two years. I feel terrible for guys like Koch and Giuliani, who really put effort into cleaning the city up.
condos are being built everywhere, even right across from Marcy projects lmao (that building is going to be huge. They had to knock down the very old Castle cleaning company factory to build this thing).
downtown brooklyn too pretty much everywhere! I know, its supply and demand but when those things are finished built the asking prices are ludicrous. If three generations of Jews dont fill them up (they are doing most of the pushing and building in Bed-stuy), good luck getting that building full with anyone else. They knocked down TWO Supermarkets (one was KEYFOOD, the other C-TOWN) to build Condos in Bed-Stuy. Basically Brooklyn is the new "city". A lot of people are leaving Manhattan and looking to settle in Brooklyn. And something I learned the other day, in some areas they are bringing back the Brownstones which imo isnt bad just because I like the look of them.
well idk about that. I wasnt around in the 70s or 80s but I looked at old footage on YT and shit, NYC at times looked like a war-zone. Esp. the South Bronx.
I spend as little time as I can in the city but anybody who thinks it's a rathole definitely didn't live there in the 70's and 80's. The crime rate seems kind of low... http://nypost.com/2014/12/03/crime-rates-plummet-in-new-york-city/
OK, I will grant you it was more dangerous during the Son of Sam era. What I find shocking is how far it has fallen over just a couple of years. I was no fan of Bloomberg, but at least the city felt SAFE when you walked through it. That was just three years ago.
Still tons of smoking hot broads walking around mid town in sleeveless sundresses and expensive sandals though. Which is nice.
Everyone took for granted what Koch started and then Guilliani took off with and Bloomberg maintained. BRA4D is correct too. I can remember being in my teens and walking down 42nd street getting any drug you wanted. It was horrible. Dirty...disgusting..and as a teen? You felt completely at home. Adults were horrified. In a blink of an eye its beginning to turn that way again. In a city like that, it can happen in under a year..not to the point of 1978 but it could. Its a disgrace whats happening and thats why someone who is liberal in crime can destroy a city very fast. While Bloomberg was liberal in politics...he was not an idiot knowing what makes a city run and what makes it tick. Sadly, there is no hope on the horizon and it will take the next election before they go back to a Gulliani type to straighten it out..guaranteed that person will win with over 65% of the vote...whoever it is. Very sad.
I was in NYC yesterday and the only thing I saw that was different from the last decade was all the new traffic lines on the streets. They've made the bicycle lanes a major priority and several streets I drove along in Washington Heights had one less lane of traffic for cars and a new bike lane. Stop and Frisk is a lousy policy but if it is really needed they should go all the way and put passive metal detectors in heavily trafficked areas of the city that are prone to violence. Then stop EVERYBODY who sets the alarm off instead of profiling young minority men and boys to be frisked. Most people won't support Stop and Frisk unless it is the other guy getting frisked. That's just reality.
It just looks dirtier to me. I dont know. You see certain things that ring bells. I have past some corners where it seemed to bring back memories. You can openly buy certain things..not stupid...that you would have to check out other alley ways etc before. Grand Central is NOT the same as it was just 4 years ago. Perhaps the economy? Perhaps not.
It's definitely the economy in terms of some things. We're living in a very slowly deflating economy from the perspective of most people. Just look at gas prices and you can see the deflation in effect, although not in a big way. I know that oil production has spiked world wide but oil is a big part of the overall cost of goods and services. I don't think any municipality has access to the kind of funds it had a decade ago and certainly not 15 years ago when the internet boom was just winding down. In my area in suburban Connecticut the thing that is really noticeable is the number of small gas stations that have shut down. Basically any service station that wasn't pumping gas as a main business has had to think about whether pumping gas adds to the bottom line enough to continue. The place I get my oil changed decided to stop pumping gas. They were paying somebody to sit behind the counter and monitor gas sales and help customers and the payoff wasn't worth it with gas prices deflating. They were doing a bit better than break even on that side of the business but they had a 7 year replacement on the underground tanks coming up and that was going to put them in a hole for at least 3 years on the gas side of the business. So, -1 job, -1 place to buy gas but the business itself was just as well off as it would have been otherwise. That's deflation in effect.
i grew up there guys, and i'm glad i did, feel fortunate about that. i got out in '89, i suggest you do the same, it's just gross.
what surprised me by a YT documentary I watched is that the lower east side was shit too and it was only 2 or so decades ago. It apparently was the place to get crack and meth.
NYC had a bunch of really bad neighborhoods right up into the late 90's. It was all the money from the Clinton era that turned things around. One easy way to improve a neighborhood is to knock down the old crappy buildings and put up new infrastructure. The Yuppie migrations from the mid-90's on were very effective in encouraging new construction. In the 70's and 80's you would never have gotten a half dozen young professionals to share a 2 bedroom apartment. By the mid 90's we were living in a "Friends" world.
My daughter lives downtown and we spend a lot of time there and in NYC generally. The city is 100 fold better than it was in the 80s and 90s. I worked there from 1985 till 2003. You guys are nuts. _
