Ah, my active collection begins in late4 1971. But I have read (and more than once) the mid-late-60s run, all of which I would love to add to my archives. Seems to me in retrospect that the era that I came into into was the "aftermath" of that era, when pretty much all the bombs had been exploded and now it was time to rebuild the city, and maybe make it bigger and brighter than ever. At the time, it just seemed like that was a normal thing to do, and it probably was, all things considered, but I've since come to realize how much of a WTF ARE WE GETTING INTO there must have been.
Also, I just came across the issue announcing the resignation of Dan Morgenstern as editor. Perhaps not coincidentally, the nascent use of COLOR on damn near ALL the pages took off right after that, as did the use of "newer" fonts and layouts. Again, at the time it all seemed normal enough, but knowing now what I didn't know then...
And also in retrospect, some of that shit is damn near impossible to read now. But that's the eyes of a 52 year old as opposed to those of a 16 year old...
Tell you what - going back to "relive the good old days" sucks donkey dix. But going back and looking for clues that you might have previously missed about why we are where we are now is kinda...not bad.