Ed Koch passed away

[mjzee]

I was reminded of this thread by this column from today's New York Post:

NYC, july 1993 Today we grouse about soda bans and Citi Bikes. Twenty years ago, we worried about being mugged or murdered.

New York Post

[Jazzmoose]

So I guess the answer now is "not too well".

[Brad]

I was reminded of this thread by this column from today's New York Post:

NYC, july 1993

Today we grouse about soda bans and Citi Bikes. Twenty years ago, we worried about being mugged or murdered.

New York Post

I live and work outside of NY now, although I lived and worked in NY from 1980 until 1993 when the company I worked for moved to NJ, and from my perspective NY is an infinitely better place in the last 20 years than before. Now, if you want to say it's in spite of Guiliani rather than because of him, I really don't know. However, like it or not, the person who is in charge when good or bad things happen gets the credit or the blame, as the case may be.

[Dmitry]

On 2/3/2013 at 1:51 PM, JETman said:

 

 

I'm not going to explain myself any longer. You're mincing a turn of phrase. You know what I meant.

 

However, I don't know what you mean by saying that my perspective on Giuliani is slanted by my experiences. Overall, my experiences have been good with regard to NYC. The quality of my life has NEVER been dependent on who happened to be mayor on any given day. I've made it what I've wanted to make of it, and THAT was completely under my control. My observations are what they are -- take a closer look at Rudy, and you'll see what I mean. He's been glorified and deified beyond belief. People give him all the credit in the world for his actions during 9/11, for instance. He was mayor of the city at that time. Given that, really, what choice did he have in the matter? Any mayor would have done what he did. He was like a Neo-Nazi in the way he carried out most of his actions -- like a petulant child at times, banging his way through doors until they opened up and had his way. His administration was the start of taking the city away from the people and handing it on a silver platter to the upper class. This, in fact, may have been the beginning of the end for the middle class in this country. Add to that all the fake smiles and glad-handing, and what you have is an Italian-American version of W. If you want a "real" opinion of him, pay no attention to me. Look to his children, who hate his guts for what he did to their mother and to them.

I'm late to this party, or should we call it a wake? Koch isn't going anywhere, so I'll put in my two cents; I lived in NYC during the last year of Koch, through all of Dinkins, Giuliani, and the first term of Bloomberg. 

From a completely uneducated, self-reliant perspective,

Koch was a character, he was perfectly comfortable in his position, but the city was dangerous and dirty. I remember being rather nervous to ride subways off peak hours, and I had to do it. It was filthy, crazy people were walking around the city; it stunk.   

Dinkins was a poor mayor. It's not his fault that the race riots lit up in Williamsburg, but his actions didn't help. He will be remembered as history's footnote. He just died, I think.

Rudy's administration turned things around, in my version. Crime dropped, international tourism picked up, the city cleaned up. I do miss the peep shows in Time Square as much as the next guy, but that's the price to pay for not having been knifed on a subway.

Bloomberg bought his mayorship three times. New York is not the city I used to love any more. The whole thing is just not what New York was to me, and to many others. It's hard to describe...just can't relate to it any more. 

This is a good film, The Bonfire of the Vanities. It illustrates some of New York during the Koch years. I should read the book.

 

 

[sonnymax]

44 minutes ago, Dmitry said:

... Rudy's administration turned things around, in my version. Crime dropped, international tourism picked up, the city cleaned up. I do miss the peep shows in Time Square as much as the next guy, but that's the price to pay for not having been knifed on a subway....

I imagine many inhabitants of Manhattan, particularly people of color, have very different memories of that time.

[Dmitry]

On 12/13/2020 at 1:43 AM, sonnymax said:

I imagine many inhabitants of Manhattan, particularly people of color, have very different memories of that time.

Are referring to the stop and frisk?

Crime went down dramatically in all of NY neighborhoods, black, white, latino, etc., under Giuliani's mayorship. It was palpable on various levels.

[Dan Gould]

This is going to go political, if it isn't already, really fast.

 

[JSngry]

Dreams of covid-infested hair dye running down the face of a major patron of a syphilitic whore house are not pleasant. can we change the subject, please?

[Dan Gould]

2 hours ago, JSngry said:

Dreams of covid-infested hair dye running down the face of a major patron of a syphilitic whore house are not pleasant. can we change the subject, please?

OK that's explicitly political, if in an oblique, no-names way. You should report yourself to the mods right away, that "can we change the subject" notwithstanding.

 

 

 

 

 

[JSngry]

I'm still working on how a dentist can be "uneducated"?