Showing posts with label 1970s New York. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1970s New York. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

What will a return to 1970s NYC be like?: "Well find out when we get there"


Over at the Village Voice, Roy Edroso responds to Nick Paumgarten's New Yorker essay on Wall Street's collapse and a possible return to the 1970s NYC:

Paumgarten avoids going all the way with this, suggesting that we can have the sweet side of the 70s cup without tasting the bitter. The collapse has unloosed something in him; for a long time such as he could not mention New York's bankrupt days without a show of revulsion, as old-world types could not mention the devil without crossing themselves. But the Wall Street debacle tells him that those prayerful gestures have come to naught: the bubble's burst and the wolf is at the door. Now he can admit that there was something cool about those old days, and he can even be glib about them.
But when that 70s show really goes into re-runs, we won't be able to edit out the unfunny bloopers. There was never a chance that we'd get cheaper rents without a crash, and as of now the market fluctuations are only ruffling the high end of the market. We're a long way from the vintage conditions of that last renaissance. Before you can have the Ramones, you have to have rehearsal spaces that even glue-sniffing slackers can afford. Before you can have Taxi Driver, you have to have urban moonscapes that don't need to be built by film crews. And you only get those in the wake of real catastrophe.

Joy-popping the 70s is a fun pastime, but be not deceived: playful speculation is nothing like the real thing. We remember fondly our $125-a-month railroad flat in a forsaken neighborhood called the East Village, and the good times we had there. We also remember nightly gunfire, mugger money, and Etan Patz. Are we willing to accept one to get the other? It's not worth wondering about: we'll find out when we get there.


[Photo of 216 E. 7th St. in 1979 by Marlis Momber.]

Bonus: Are you ready for 1974 again?



And! If you don't have time to watch all of the 39 Death Wish movies, let's just get to it:



Tuesday, September 23, 2008

On returning to the 1970s in 2008 and beyond



Nick Paumgarten on the possible implications of the Wall Street meltdown (under the heading in The New Yorker this week of Dept. of Magical Thinking):

For example: let’s postulate that the collapse of the financial-services industry spells catastrophe for New York City, a return to the nineteen-seventies. Lost tax revenues, budgetary shortfalls, unemployment (not only of those in finance but of the hordes who rely on them), plunging property values, vanished retirement accounts. Let’s cut this up, like a pile of bad debt, into various strips, and, as the rating agencies did to various slices of subprime-mortgage debt, take the top layer and, abracadabra, rate it triple A. Throw out the other strips, the grim probabilities—the crime, the decaying infrastructure, the hardship all around, the heroin and the syphilis. What do we have left? The bright side: maybe Manhattan will become affordable again, and cool, and dangerous. Dangerous in theory, but not to you or your family and friends. Dirty, but in a good way. Night clubs where anything goes. Art, music, Billy Martin.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Anarchy in the UK and US

Stupefaction provides the details on the Howl!-related panel discussion at the Bowery Poetry Club titled "Unrest in the 70s -- US vs UK."

Featured panelists:

Richard Lloyd (Television)
Ari Up (Slits)
Cynthia Sley (Bush Tetras)
Judy Nylon (Snatch)
Walter Lure (Heartbreakers)
Arturo Vega (Ramones)
Steve Garvey (Buzzcocks)

Moderator: Mary Harron