1970's New York City

**Radiohead** · June 13th, 2008, 09:14 PM

Folk dancers at South Street seaport

From Brooklyn

Automobile Show at NY Coliseum 1973

From Bayonne NJ

East River Park

East River

**Radiohead** · June 13th, 2008, 09:29 PM

Rotting old warehouses on the Hudson

Queensboro Bridge at 59th St

Midtown

Drainage outflow from WTC

Hudson police patrol

Landfill site of proposed Liberty State Park

108th & Lexington

FDR Drive

**Radiohead** · June 13th, 2008, 09:53 PM

More from the '73 auto show

**Radiohead** · June 13th, 2008, 10:19 PM

1974 view from NJ

Houston St

Avenue D housing project

Downtown

Herald Square traffic jam

Triple parked??

**Radiohead** · June 13th, 2008, 10:38 PM

FDR Underpass

62nd Street

The Village

Hackensack River in foreground

**Radiohead** · June 13th, 2008, 10:53 PM

Outside Grand Central terminal

Motorcycles near Battery Park

Most of the color images from 1973-74 in the last 5-6 posts come from the National Archives. Let's finish with this...

**brianac** · June 14th, 2008, 04:54 AM

Wow what a marathon.

Thanks Radiohead.

**MidtownGuy** · June 14th, 2008, 10:35 AM

Great photos.
Everything was orange, yellow and brown in the 70's. All those earth tones look so wacky now.

**MrSpice** · June 14th, 2008, 12:07 PM

Amazing pictures. The city looked so dirty, poor and mismanaged. It's still pretty dirty, but I would not even think of living in New York of the 70s. Looks really depressing.

**Fabrizio** · June 14th, 2008, 12:24 PM

Oh it was not depressing at all. It WAS friggin' scary.

BUT it was a happening place. Music... art... genuine movements and trends. It's a better city now, nice and pleasant, but not stimulating in the way it was back then.

**smuncky** · June 14th, 2008, 06:55 PM

Thanks for that post. I love these old images.

**Luca** · June 16th, 2008, 05:06 AM

Originally Posted by Radiohead

Brooklyn view of Manhattan Bridge

Wow. Just...wow. What an atomospheric picture.

**NYC4Life** · June 17th, 2008, 03:52 PM

Thank god the 70's was only 1 decade. This was perhaps the worst period in the history of the city. With its economic deficit and soaring crime rates and extreme poverty, this was certainly a time where no one would come and visit. So much has changed since then.

**Fabrizio** · June 17th, 2008, 05:51 PM

You know guys, you really have to rethink things a bit.

People came to NYC in the 70's. They came because they truly loved the theatre, art, music. NYC was very rarified... it had nothing to do with Viking kitchen appliances. Among all of that decay was genuine art movements and gosh, to think that B'way had Bob Fosse, Michael Bennet, there was Joe Papp downtown, Sondheim was still writing new musicals, we still had Warhol, Woody Allen was doing films about NYC, you had young artists making a mark on society like Haring, Basquit. The Ramones, Patti Smith, Blondie, Laurie Anderson, Philip Glass ...Max's Kansas City, CBGB's... Studio 54...Halston was a genuine force in fashion...you still had Merce Cunningham, Martha Graham, and Paul Taylor....Tama Janowitz, Spalding Gray, Eric Bogosian and on and on... a lot of this continued into the 1980's... but today?

Who and what compares?

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8017.html

ANOTHER way NYC was viewed and considered in the 1970's.... please watch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0o6QKpNK9Cc

Besides decay and crime... NY was also portrayed this way:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PLvQ...eature=related

(BTW: I forgot what good actress Diane Keaton was... watch her dig into this)

---

**MidtownGuy** · June 17th, 2008, 07:15 PM

Thanks Fabrizio, I think it's important to keep a balanced perspective on the 1970's. It wasn't all bad by any means. I would give anything to time travel back there and experience it for myself.