It comes as no surprise that a LOT has changed in the city since the 70s. Not just high crime rates, the city was a renowned for the dirt and mess, there was even a controversial 9-day trash strike in 1968 which left parts of the city looking like a landfill. Here is a collection of images that will make you really appreciate modern day NYC.
Compare New York in 1970 to New York in 2017, and you wouldn’t believe that you were looking at the same city. In the ’70s and ’80s New York City was seen as one of the worlds grimiest and most dangerous metropolitan areas. An unprecedented financial crisis in the mid-’70s brought Poverty which led to widespread drug use and crime. Not-so-slowly the city fell into disrepair.
Here is a snapshot of the past that will really bring home how lucky we are, at least in terms of hygiene, to live in 2017 New York City.
Manhattan Bridge tower in Brooklyn, in June of 1974.
Anderson Avenue in the Bronx during the 1968 Sanitation Strike
Illegal dumping in the area just off the New Jersey Turnpike in March of 1973. See this same spot, now Liberty State Park.
People camping out for Grateful Dead tickets at The Fillmore East (525 E 11th Street) on the trash-strewn sidewalk, May 1970.
This heavily tagged Bronx sidewalk is a playground for young NYers in April of 1973.
Subway cars were so heavily graffiti-marked they are almost unrecognizable to the trains of today (May 1973).
A car chassis dumped near Breezy Point in Jamaica Bay in May of 1973.
An oil slick hugs the coast of Liberty Island in New York Harbor (May of 1973).
Construction on Lower Manhattan’s West Side and makeshift dumping ground, north of the World Trade Center, in May of 1973.