I traveled frequently to NYC in the late 80s, then didn’t return for 10 years, then moved here in 2002. There is a HUGE difference between then and now. HUGE.

And the South Bronx is rebounding. it’s full of the young bohos who got priced out of Williamsburg.

NYC certainly isn’t paved with gold, but it’s safe and livable (except for the outrageous rents).

Yes, the brunch was a lot of fun. 4 hours of girl talk and recovering liberals support group. 🙂
Ditto on the road trips!

On the walk home I was amazed. That neighborhood, like most of the city, has really improved. I used to work near Broadway during the dark ages of the early ’80’s before Giuliani cleaned the whole place up. I returned to the area in the late ’90’s and felt like a stranger in a strange land. No squeegee guys, no porn on 42nd street, polite cabbies. Like Proust with his madeleines, if it wasn’t for the old familiar odors in the subways, I would have been lost.

Neo: I was stationed at Governor’s Island in 1974 and would take the USCGC ferry into Manhattan. Then catch those oh-so-dangerous subways to get around. I remember how Broadway and Times Square were sadness in lights.

This was the late 90’s, and everyone was talking about how much the city had improved under Giuliani. There was a huge amount of media attention on this point. Times Square was all cleaned up, crime was way down, and there were no more obvious signs of panhandlers, pimps, whores, crackheads, or hustlers. No street was left unstrolled at night. Even the South Bronx had rebounded. If you rode the subway, you’d never see any graffiti, spot a bit of trash, or smell a whiff of urine. More than that, there was positive talk of a “new civility.”

Reading these accounts, I came away with the image of marble-paved streets. I imagined men in tophats making grand gestures and vying with each other, throwing their coats to the ground to help a lady cross a puddle. So it was out of a sense of urgency that returned to see what was going on. I thought the city I knew might have been gone forever! It didn’t take long — maybe a matter of minutes — for me to arrive at a judgement: false alarm!