How did Times Square get 'gentrified,' 'cleaned up?'

[-deleted-]

Facts the old nyc was what Chicago is right now. I’ll tell you what the immigrants who had to work through all of this shyt hate the old NyC and never want it back.


The only people who want that nyc back I imagine were probably young people/kids back then.


No older working person with a family wanted to live there back then

the thing is even though it is cleaned up the people are still on timing

just this weekend 5 teens got arrested for slashing at least 3 people on the Brooklyn bound 4 train

 

[Thurgood Thurston III]

 

[ZoeGod]

Ppl complain about the city losing its identity. But if you listened to Biggie, the old NY sounded like a nightmare. Ppl complain about gentrified cities losing their “soul” as if high homicide rates high drug addiction and general societal decay wasn’t part of that “soul” and “gritty” era.

Basically in those days NYC was seeing 1k-2k murders a year. Imagine that type of mayhem where anywhere you go you get mugged, stabbed, shot. My parents are Haitian immigrants and the stories of NYC in the 80s to the mid 90s are horrifying. Many people don't want those days back. I don't want those days back either.

 

[Cave Savage]

Neoliberalism

Wouldn't doing nothing about it and letting porn shops thrive be neoliberalism?

 

[Sankofa Alwayz]

This one looks like a more “tourist-friendly” version of late 80’s Times Square compared to OP lol

 

[Devil Plisken…CMS]

What actually killed the crime wave in NY during the 70s was that wages got better

People were less poor and there were a lot more opportunities for societal advancement.

It’s easy to join a gang and be a menace to society when you have no avenues to improve yourself as a young person. Only option was the streets.

That might not have really answered your question but it’s a reoccurring theme throughout the years, the better it got for poor people the less overall crime and destitute the city got. Once that happened and crack decimated the black communities there was a slow but gradual process of gentrification.

this is false & inaccurate

 

[Devil Plisken…CMS]

The city luring Disney to the city via tax breaks in 93 + Broken Glass Policing + rezoning

 

[SAJ!!]

Watch Taxi Driver and then watch a more modern film set in New York. They got rid of all the porn shops, all the sleazy places. Then that real estate went to reputable businesses/restaurants. Massive clean up jobs on subways to go from looking like war zones to decent public service areas.

And they just started arresting+harassing black and Hispanic men to get them out of Times Square and other areas. Broken Windows and other shyt were blatantly racist policies, and if you fear you’re gonna be arrested or harassed for BS your behavior will change.

Hip hop wise they also closed or altered clubs and venues where rap was prominent. This resonates to this day and is why NY rap was dead for so long. Without places like the Tunnel to gauge what people wanted to hear, the end result was a stagnation of music while the south took over. Remember there are no club restrictions in the south, and 90% of the music they emit is made with strip clubs in mind.

I remembered Kool Moe Dee talking about this in a Spin Magazine interview some time back.

 

[King]

this is false & inaccurate

Elaborate

 

[UberEatsDriver]

Sounds accurate....Crime rates dropped in many major cities (Dallas, LA, Houston, Atlanta, DC, etc...) and the US as a whole starting in the mid 90s, yet Giuliani is given all this credit for NYC’s crime declining.

Seems like Giuliani just lucked out with his timing.

That what it was. Timing and the fact that nyc had a steeper decline that many other cities and race as well.

 

[Devil Plisken…CMS]

Elaborate

First off your statement gave the impression that the crime issue subsided after the 70s when it in fact increased until the 90s hit

 

[FreedMind]

The Deuce on HBO is all about how TS got cleaned up. Business investors bought all that property to help bring in more commerce so the Mayor of NY had the NYPD clean up all the street walkers and whore houses.

I stopped watching after the first season.

Might have to watch the rest now.

 

[King]

First off your statement gave the impression that the crime issue subsided after the 70s when it in fact increased until the 90s hit

I actually pointed that out somewhat. I believe there was a decrease in crime until crack hit the streets when it rapidly increased to unprecedented levels. Thus serving as the catalyst to gentrification.

 

[Devil Plisken…CMS]

I actually pointed that out somewhat. I believe there was a decrease in crime until crack hit the streets when it rapidly increased to unprecedented levels. Thus serving as the catalyst to gentrification.

1981 was the peak of crime in nyc at one point....before crack

 

[DEANBIGBROTHERALLMIGHTY18]

Yeah I need to know how that shyt was cleaned up

all I was hearing was Dinkins time as a mayor was a joke and Rudy saved Manhattan

I need to hear from New Yorkers who knows @SourPowerStraws and @LaBellaNicole0416.NYC

and others who from NYC

Crime actually started to go down with Dinkins but right used to attribute everything wrong with the city on Dinkins and painted Dinkins as "Soft on Crime