Boy, has that city changed.
Remember "The French Connection"? Remember "Serpico?" Remember photos of the "Bombed Out (South) Bronx"? NYC: what a dump. I grew up about 35 miles outside of NYC and went there quite frequently throughout the year for sports (spectator & participator), other events, and travel. NYC was everything (and worse) than what we remember from scrapbooks or the movies.
I remember delivering the "Daily News" issue where President Ford told NYC to pound salt; he wasn't bailing out the dump it had become.
The Dems (to include the JFK-wannabe, NYC mayor John Lindsay) oversaw an utterly corrupt dump of a town. It was very dangerous to visit (Grand Central Station, for example, with its druggies, hookers, etc. may make for a great joke, but it was truly frightening for a young teen to transit). Litter everywhere, drug needles everywhere. homeless and urine everywhere.
Giuliani gets credit for much of NYC's renaissance (and rightly so; though voters should get a giant share of the credit too: they had finally had it and were desperate for something "new"). In the face of liberal howling and yammering Giuliani enforced such common sense measures as immediately painting over graffiti as quickly as it went up on buildings and subway cars, rousting vagrants out of the city's parks, backing the police (while at the same time expecting better from what had become an utterly contemptible law enforcement agency),and establishing new ground rules with the Mafia (etc.) to get the gang problem under control (the Russians were infiltrating (yes, all you hear about Brighton Beach is pretty much true), but the real problem were the Jamaicans (who everyone (even the organized crime folks) thought were whacked-out nuts). And while it took years, look what NYC had become: safe, fun, and the world's #1 city (though de Blasio is doing his best to go back to the future).
Hmm, drugs, vagrants, urine and feces. This all sounds currently rather familiar on the other side of the country.
--- End of line (MCP)
