Found that anti-gentrification blog. It’s called Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York.
It doesn’t have a list of terms on the front page - just one: yunnie, for young urban narcissist - but it calls itself “a bitterly nostalgic look at a city in the process of going extinct.”
Ah, I see. My own interest is almost the opposite of that guy’s in that I’m more interested in seeing/ reading about stuff that’s not there anymore or has changed out of all recognition rather than finding the stuff that still is there. The contrasts, you know? But it was interesting in its own right - thank you for tracking it down for me.
Quite a few movies from the period. Just off the top of my head:
The Godfather and The Godfather II (portrayed the city in earlier periods, too, but had 1970s shots from the 1970s
**The French Connection
Cops and Robbers
Hair** – Interesting, since it was filmed in the 1970s (1979), but sought to portray the city ten years earlier, so they excluded a lot of 10-speeds and the like.
Filmed later, but tried to show the city as it was in the 1960s and 1970s
**Born on the Fourth of July
Forrest Gump**
I don’t know if these two books/movies would be useful to you. they are two of my very favorites, though, little chronicles of the lives of a single woman, and a married woman, in days gone by.
Sheila Levine is Dead and Living in New York by Gail Parent. A chubby Jewish girl from Scarsdale who is desperate to get married moves to the Big City. Eventually tries to commit suicide. Hilarious, heartbreaking, witty and bright. (Avoid the horrendous movie version, if you can even find it on on old VHS tape somewhere, which has nothing to do with the novel whatsoever and really stinks and is boring to boot.) I love this. girls from well- off parents gonna make it on their own living in a…a…a kind of space in a building in Greenwich Village. Hey, it’s the Village! Cool! The single life in the 70’s.
Diary of A Mad Housewife by Sue Kaufman. A middle class (on the upper side) woman married to a pretentious boob tries to live a normal life, raise her children, reaches a breaking point and has a short, passionate affair with a mean author…(The movie version is excellent, starring Carrie Snodgrass, Richard Benjamin, and Frank Langella. This movie seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth. Good luck.) I love this book, written in the days when a middle class family actually could live and raise children in NYC, a real glimpse of the past.
If nothing else, you will laugh reading the prices of things, the salaries they made. Regular people living in and enjoying NYC. Those days are long gone.
Classic gritty NY 70’s movie - The Panic in Needle Park.
Other not so gritty, but still good '70s NY:
The Hot Rock
**Marathon Man **
3 Days of The Condor, is a wonderful movie from 1975.
I love the phone technology from the past.
I think the books sound delightful, especially the first one. I’ll give them a go. Thanks!
Also, thank you all for the movie suggestions. There’s a couple in there that I don’t think I ever heard of even, Like Cops and Robbers so that’s exciting. Fresh finds! 
I grew up there and then, and my first adult nightmares were about Son of Sam trying to stalk and kill me. I was 13 and had long dark hair. Fun times. 
If you weren’t wealthy enough for discos or old enough to live on your own in Manhattan or Brooklyn, like me in the Bronx, the glamour of the 70s was somewhat…diminished. Those carefree suburban kids buying pot in the Village were doing it from guys in my neighborhood, who were slowly turning it into hell on earth for the rest of us.
Some more must-see movies:
The Warriors. There’s the harrowing subway of my childhood! Anyone who thinks graffiti was cool never had their clothes ruined by it.
Lots of early Woody Allen, although his world was a bit more rarefied. Yep, that’s Stallone in that scene from BANANAS.
and above all–The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3. The original, with the grit and bad language and ineffable attitude.
Finally, here’s some great pix. Note how things were just–scruffier–sidewalks often broken, phones not working, windows broken, grass growing in cracks, stairs unswept, etc.
This BBC documentary about the financial crisis in New York in the '70s is quite interesting.
Summer of Sam, by Spike Lee. It covers the summer of 1977 when the Son of Sam murders were terrorizing the city.
The Bronx Zoo by Sparky Lyle covers the disfunctional New York Yankees during a time of great professional success.
A couple more NYC movies from the seventies: The Conversation and Mean Streets.
The Conversation is set in San Francisco, as I remember.
You’re right. My mistake.
Born To Win (1971) has some scenes that capture the feel of '70s NYC.
The smoke rings billboard was still around, too. :eek:
Is that pic of Times Square back in the day? Cool!
Also, just on the off chance that anyone shares my interest in seeing New York City on film in the '70s besides me, another one I liked for its use of location shooting to create mood was Live And Let Die (1973). Bond does quite a bit of driving into the city and around it, especially around Harlem. I recall there being truly epic amounts of rubble on screen, especially in the scenes where Bond is taken into an alley to be executed by the thugs of Mr Big. (Spoiler: he escapes!)
I’m guessing somehow I probably wasn’t seeing exactly documentary realism here but it was still pretty interesting to see such big chunks of the city on camera - they gift the viewer with a lot of establishing shots.
I can remember the smoking billboard. I can remember Time Square when it was still the center of the sleaze district.
And I can remember eating at the Automat which I thought was great when I was a kid.
I thought the Automat was great when you were a kid too.
My Grandpa worked for the Automats! He was an account executive and used to travel all over the city to consult with them. He could pick out a Horn & Hardart by just the configuration of the building (hint: most 70s Burger Kings were ex-automats, since their parent company bought out H&H). It was fast food before fast food, although by the 70s now-familiar chains were growing like kudzu. But portion sizes were a lot smaller and we all had skinnier bodies–and tighter clothes. 
Just to let you know that I watched Serpico last night. As an emotionally engaging experience, I found it fell a bit flat for me but for delivering what I asked to be in the tin, namely 1970s New York, I think this excelled. Seriously, it was like Lumet looked around NYC and said, “You know, we really should get this place all on film. You never know when some pasty English chick might want to see it how it all looked.” It was awesome! The film travels all over town :)The clothes that Al wears throughout were also fantastic.
Thanks for the recommendation!
