# 80 stunning photos of old New York (1970-1989)



## editor (May 29, 2014)

Check out this amazing collection of photos of a beat up old NY from the 70s/80s.







This area is now extremely posh!





















Loads more: http://superchief.tv/80-photos-of-old-new-york-1970-1989/

More: http://www.flickr.com/photos/urbanphotos/
http://weber-street-photography.com/


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## golightly (May 30, 2014)

Cheers.  I was in New York in 1988 staying on Avenue A.  The changes I saw when I visited again only 9 years later were amazing.  Seemed like a completely different city.


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## joustmaster (May 30, 2014)

The thread title puts me in mind of the click bait thread


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## klang (May 30, 2014)

I love this one:


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## editor (May 30, 2014)

joustmaster said:


> The thread title puts me in mind of the click bait thread


Except there's a discussion taking place and there's no advertising revenue to be earned.

Back on topic, when I visited NY in the mid-80s, I was too terrified to take many photos. The Lower East Side was a scary place but I got given an easy ride because I looked so weird to most locals (or so I was told).


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## Fez909 (May 30, 2014)

Favelado


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## kraepelin (May 30, 2014)

It's when i look at photos from the 80s that i realise that i am now oldish. My childhood in those times would to some 16-20yr olds, much like my mothers seemed to me distant and unrelatable.

Will my childhood be classed by the youth as the pre-internet days, in the way i was amazed that my mum could remember black and white TV


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## editor (May 30, 2014)

editor said:


> Check out this amazing collection of photos of a beat up old NY from the 70s/80s.



Here's the same scene today: 

 

https://goo.gl/maps/F4ESd


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## skyscraper101 (May 30, 2014)

I was in Harlem and the Bronx last year. The guy who was showing us around, a 60 odd year old life long NY resident, was convinced I'd all have these misconceptions that it was all gangland and rough - which I didn't. It didn't stop him pointing out at _every_ opportunity the lack of crime and all the abundant good living there is these days!

I imagine Detroit nowadays is probably the closest looking to what old NYC used to be like. Even some of the seedier parts of Downtown LA  feel to me more like what I imagine 80s NY was like. Won't be long before that is gone too.


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## editor (May 30, 2014)

skyscraper101 said:


> I was in Harlem and the Bronx last year. The guy who was showing us around, a 60 odd year old life long NY resident, was convinced I'd all have these misconceptions that it was all gangland and rough - which I didn't. It didn't stop him pointing out at _every_ opportunity the lack of crime and all the abundant good living there is these days!
> 
> I imagine Detroit nowadays is probably the closest looking to what old NYC used to be like. Even some of the seedier parts of Downtown LA  feel to me more like what I imagine 80s NY was like. Won't be long before that is gone too.


A few bits of Philly felt well run down when I was walking around earlier this month.


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## davesgcr (May 30, 2014)

First short visit was in 1984 - the subway was awful , smelt of urine , deserted after 2000hrs even in the Centre , all felt edgy and you were always watchful. Still  a great city even at its lowest point - in many ways (fascinated though I was then) ,it is much better today.

Imagine being a conductor working the No 4 train to the Bronx or Flatbush Avenue  on the night shift (a job given to the new recruits) in those days. The cycle of creation - near destruction - and re-birth took around 100 years in areas like the Bronx. Not a good place for the average citizen in those days. (the firefighting shots are excellent) - good job covered by "Report from Engine Company 84" and "Subway Hell - my years a NYC conductor" - we can safely read , without having to live through it !


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## Favelado (May 30, 2014)

What a fucking thread. Made for me.


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## Favelado (May 30, 2014)

There is a big forum called City Data which has tonnes of decent material. I'm not saying leave Urban of course!

John Fekner was an artist whose work became well-known in the 70s and 80s. Reagan made a famous visit to the Bronx after mismanaged rent-control policies, sadistic landlords, gang violence and a barelybelievable arson epidemic had reduced much of the boro to some type of neo-Dresden. He stood in front of Fekner's Broken/False Promises graffiti and a little bit of history was made. Politicians turned the trip to the Bronx into a box to be ticked in electoral campaigns. Fekner quite possibly was an inspiration for Banksy many year later, with his combination of graffiti with a social message.


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## Favelado (May 30, 2014)

kraepelin said:


> Will my childhood be classed by the youth as the pre-internet days, in the way i was amazed that my mum could remember black and white TV



Some of us still had black and white tellies in the early 90s because we couldn't afford a colour license!


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## Favelado (May 30, 2014)

editor

I own a book called "Do Not Give Way To Evil Photographs of the South Bronx 1989-1997" which may be of interest you. I see that at least one of the pictures in your OP is from that book. Charlotte Street in the Bronx became a type of poster child for the urban ills of NYC at the time. So adding Charlotte Street to Google searches might help your results in finding images.

To see the extent of the destruction in some neighbourhoods, the film Wolfen contained some scenes of utter devastation from the air in its credits which can be found at about 6.50 in this clip. It also contains some of the scenes from Koyaanisqaati (one day to be fishco-ed in spectacular style), bits of 80 blocks from Tiffany's, that BBC4 documentary about the beginnings of hip-hop and a documentary called "The Fire Next Door". The latter is available on Yotube and is an amazing watch, if you can deal with the totally messed up sound quality.

Here's the mish-mash video.



Here's 80 Blocks from Tiffany's.



Here some more South Bronx clips from Wolfen.



If you're really up for it, here's The Fire Next Door.




Hope that helps someone.


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## Fez909 (May 30, 2014)

Favelado said:


> reduced much of the *boro *to some type of neo-Dresden


I think you mean borough


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## Favelado (May 30, 2014)

Fez909 said:


> I think you mean borough



It's New York so I chose the word intentionally. The Bronx is one of the 5 boros of New York. It seemed apt to swtich to US English. Also, Boro (capital B) and The Bronx are synonyms in many other ways - hehe.


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## davesgcr (May 30, 2014)

A very good friend of mine was raised in the Bronx (Jewish - dad a cab driver - original NYC roots from the Lower East Side - her grandfather fled Russian Pogroms in the 19thC) - anyway , a happy life , City College (free) education , taught in the school system etc for many years. Left the Bronx (176th Street) , as it fell to pieces in the 60's , (and became unliveable in)  - moved to W79th Street when the area was just about liveable in the 1970's (plenty of junkies and muggers around) - area became better as the revitalisation of NYC kicked in. Her old home - a fine art-deco area became scuzzy - was torched - and is now restored to good condition - albeit to a different group of inhabitants. She has now moved back to the Bronx - albeit Riverdale in her retirement. (and uses the subway - which she would not have done after say 1975) , - what goes around, comes around. She and her family lived it - so any "hipster" bollocks abut NYC has lost its edge is crap - any city depends on the citizens and the ability to live a decent life , with respect, safety and dignity in the area.


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## JTG (May 30, 2014)

Favelado said:


> It's New York so I chose the word intentionally. The Bronx is one of the 5 boros of New York. It seemed apt to swtich to US English. Also, Boro (capital B) and The Bronx are synonyms in many other ways - hehe.


Borough is the correct US term

Visited the south South Bronx last year. Still not a barrel of laughs really


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## Favelado (May 30, 2014)

JTG said:


> Borough is the correct US term



The dictionaries confirm this but "boro" seems to be commonly used in American writing too.


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## JTG (May 30, 2014)

Only in place names afaik


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## oryx (May 30, 2014)

Fantastic photos. I particularly like this one:






Anyone got any idea what/where this is?






My one and only visit to NY was in 1987. I didn't think it was that bad but then I stayed mostly in Manhattan. I remember travelling through Harlem on a bus and not thinking it was that bad, and going on the subway - ditto. (I travelled on the subway on my own and found it fine - I had seen pictures and thought it was going to be really scary!).


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## The Boy (Jun 3, 2014)

what the story with all the fires, then?


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## davesgcr (Jun 3, 2014)

Much of the Bronx and Brooklyn were built in the early 20thC , by the 1960's , thanks to post war rent control and population changes (white flight and inward migration) , the areas were in many cases "less attractive" - some of the landlords worked out , rather than invest in revitalising their properties (for which they could not get a return) , better to pull out and collect the insurance. Hence many cases of arson. This became an epidemic - so that large areas looked like post 14/2/1945 Dresden by the early / mid 1970's. Google "Tiffany Street" the Bronx in pictures - or "The Bronx is Burning".....


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## Johnny Canuck3 (Jun 3, 2014)

golightly said:


> Cheers.  I was in New York in 1988 staying on Avenue A.  The changes I saw when I visited again only 9 years later were amazing.  Seemed like a completely different city.



Mayor Giuliani


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## Johnny Canuck3 (Jun 3, 2014)

Favelado said:


> It's New York so I chose the word intentionally. The Bronx is one of the 5 boros of New York. It seemed apt to swtich to US English. Also, Boro (capital B) and The Bronx are synonyms in many other ways - hehe.



Uh uh.

https://www.google.ca/#q=new+york+boros


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## Favelado (Jun 3, 2014)

[QUOTE="davesgcr, post: 13179410, member: 210". Google "Tiffany Street" the Bronx in pictures - or "The Bronx is Burning".....[/QUOTE]

Charlotte Street right?


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## Favelado (Jun 3, 2014)

Here's the Reagan picture with Fekner graffiti in the background.


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## editor (Jun 3, 2014)

Johnny Canuck3 said:


> Mayor Giuliani


He was only a factor in the changes, not the sole reason.


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## Favelado (Jun 3, 2014)

editor said:


> He was only a factor in the changes, not the sole reason.



Some of it is an out-and-out mystery too. The fall in crime in the US is a controversial subject, with a variety of theories put forward in different books.


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## davesgcr (Jun 3, 2014)

Favelado said:


> [QUOTE="davesgcr, post: 13179410, member: 210". Google "Tiffany Street" the Bronx in pictures - or "The Bronx is Burning".....



Charlotte Street right?[/QUOTE]

Indeed - or Fox Street , Intervale Ave etc. Charlotte Street was the really famous one - and I think the first one to have some single family dwellings built there to kick start the slow regeneration. Only ever seen from the IRT subway on a visit in 1988 or so. Crotona Park was "interesting" in the bad days one gathers.	 

The film "Fort Apache - the Bronx" gives some good visual representations.


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## TodayIsCaturday (Jun 3, 2014)

So are people lamenting the dangerous edgy place of the 1980s, or is this a case of gentrification being mostly a good thing?


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## Favelado (Jun 3, 2014)

TodayIsCaturday said:


> So are people lamenting the dangerous edgy place of the 1980s, or is this a case of gentrification being mostly a good thing?



I think the point is that while you don't want a city to be as dangerous as NYC was then, and you don't want to see the kind of suffering that the populace went through, nor do you  don't want to see house prices rocket, the displacement of less well-off people unable to afford to stay in the areas they grew up in, and the gentrification of everyday life and physical space. Anyone think punk, hip-hop and disco could be born at the same time in New York now? Anyone really think that New York is still the most exciting place in the world? I haven't been that many places on the planet but I'm pretty sure some of the ones I've visited are more "vibrant" and interesting than NYC these days.

You can have a city with less (no not fewer, I know what I'm writing) than 1000 murders a year without it becoming relatively devoid of street-life, full of petty regulation and over-run by the wealthy. I think that's the challenge for a number of major world cities these days. At the moment the scales are tipping the wrong way but we shouldn't give up.


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## sim667 (Jun 4, 2014)

Great photos, thanks for the link.

Im going to share these on FB as I've got a lot of photographer freinds in NYC


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## The Boy (Jun 4, 2014)

davesgcr said:


> Much of the Bronx and Brooklyn were built in the early 20thC , by the 1960's , thanks to post war rent control and population changes (white flight and inward migration) , the areas were in many cases "less attractive" - some of the landlords worked out , rather than invest in revitalising their properties (for which they could not get a return) , better to pull out and collect the insurance. Hence many cases of arson. This became an epidemic - so that large areas looked like post 14/2/1945 Dresden by the early / mid 1970's. Google "Tiffany Street" the Bronx in pictures - or "The Bronx is Burning".....



ffs, insurance  @ self.

If it's any sort of defence, I was on a train at the time trying to ignore the office dullards having a business meeting at the same table as me.


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## Favelado (Jun 4, 2014)

Residents burned their own apartments out to get rehoused, it wasn't just landlords.


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## davesgcr (Jun 4, 2014)

Favelado said:


> Residents burned their own apartments out to get rehoused, it wasn't just landlords.




Not helped by the advice given in social security offices on how to get rehoused if burned out , and more worryingly by the City withdrawing fire service coverage in the area due to fiscal cuts - as certain politicos deemed the Bronx to be a worn out area and fit for "clearance" (nothing to do with the Banks of course) - as the situation got out of hand , some determined effort was made to reverse this , but very serious community and infrastructure damage had been done by then. Written up in several books. As you can see, I have a bit of an interest here (must be my geography degree) , I do recommend a fine book called "The Miracle of Intervale Avenue" how a Jeish synagogue hung on in the worst years thanks to a dedicated local Jewish baker , who refused to leave his home turf. (made also into a documentary)


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## Favelado (Jun 4, 2014)

davesgcr said:


> Not helped by the advice given in social security offices on how to get rehoused if burned out , and more worryingly by the City withdrawing fire service coverage in the area due to fiscal cuts - as certain politicos deemed the Bronx to be a worn out area and fit for "clearance" (nothing to do with the Banks of course) - as the situation got out of hand , some determined effort was made to reverse this , but very serious community and infrastructure damage had been done by then. Written up in several books. As you can see, I have a bit of an interest here (must be my geography degree) , I do recommend a fine book called "The Miracle of Intervale Avenue" how a Jeish synagogue hung on in the worst years thanks to a dedicated local Jewish baker , who refused to leave his home turf. (made also into a documentary)



I've heard of that story about the synagogue I think. South Bronx Rising is a dry yet informative account of what happened there. Jill Jonnes the author if my memory serves me right. Residents were indeed told they could jump the queue this way.


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## Sweet FA (Jun 4, 2014)

Favelado said:


> editorHope that helps someone.


Loved 80 Blocks. I guess you'll have seen _Flyin' Cut Sleeves_? There's another one called _Rubble Kings_ but I'm not sure if it got released. Also _Ain't Gonna Eat My Mind _which I've never found. I suspect there's a load of crossover in the footage that's used (though the Rubble Kings trailer has got some proper _Wanderers_ style mass rumble action I'd not seen before).





One film that I've never been able to find is one about addicts in (I think) NYC in the 60s or 70s. I've never found anyone else who's seen it so I might have made it all up. I'm sure I saw it late night on some sort of (documentary?) series about 30 years ago (fuck _me _I'm old). It was in b&w I think and the title was the name of a street or a corner possibly. It was loosely about a group of people squatting in some shithole injecting heroin (I guess). Maybe I'm misremembering and it was just scenes from something else I've seen.


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## Favelado (Jun 4, 2014)

I've chipped in some cash for Rubble Kings! I hope it got made! I'll have another loo at your post in a bit. Multi-tasking and and ballsing them all up here


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## Sweet FA (Jun 5, 2014)

Whilst looking fruitlessly again for that heroin doc, I found this which looks fucking terrible


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