Forgetting about the upcoming election for a minute… how does the New York of today compare with New York of Dinkins or Koch? I am really hoping to hear from those with personal experience (whether visiting or residing) not just statistics, etc. Is it as good as I think it is?
I am thirty, grew up in Westchester county and Connecticut and made regular trips in. I also went to school in the City, so have a fair to limited perspective. I love what Guliani has done for Manhattan. (He even made it possible for the island to post here!) The City is cleaner and safer than any other time I can remember. Times Square, etc. while nice, was a minefield of pushers and prostitutes a few years back. I can’t describe how bad (well, bad in comparison to today) was to my left-leaning-Hillary-loving college friends who moved there during Guliani’s reign. Or am I misremembering? Thoughts?
Thanks.
Once in a while you can get shown the light
in the strangest of places
if you look at it right…
I think the transformation started before Guliani, but he’s definately helped keep things going.
I’ve only stayed in NYC once, for a week in April 1996 on business. I stayed at a hotel just north of Columbus Circle right next to Central Park. After work, I would walk all around the Times Square area or the lower side of Broadway. I only ran into one criminal, and she just wanted to know if I wanted a date.
The subways were grittier than DC’s, but considering their age and the volume they handle, nothing not to be expected. The operators were clear and polite, except once when it took over a minute for some passengers to get loaded onto the train. The operator was just shy of using some “colorful metaphors”.
One thing that did bug me was that it did matter what entrance you used for a particular station. In DC’s Metro, there’s always an over/underpass inside the station (i.e., after you go through the gates) so that you can get to the tracks running in the opposite direction. After hanging out in front of the Today show window, I walked over to Broadway and went down the first entrance to the station I wanted. But I could only get on northbound trains; I needed to go to the WTC area. I had no more cash, so I got on and went north until I got to the station near my hotel, which I knew I could get to the southbound side. Rather a pain, IMO.
My wife, OTOH, went there when the city was worse, and is loathe to stay there for any extended visit.
And no matter what, I’m never taking I-95 through the city again like I did after Xmas. That was the worst, confusing, construction-laden mess I’ve seen in a long while.
The Canadians. They walk among us. William Shatner. Michael J. Fox. Monty Hall. Mike Meyers. Alex Trebek. All of them Canadians. All of them here.
AWB: I admit it’s annoying not to be able to pick and choose, but the subway entrances are clearly marked either UPTOWN ONLY, DOWNTOWN ONLY, or UPTOWN/DOWNTOWN. The worst part is having to wait to cross Broadway when the train you want is on the opposite side.
Yeah, there is a big difference, and it DID start in the Giuliani years (you think Dinkins would have done ANYTHING in the Giuliani style? Hah.) Of course, loudmouth Koch and mousy Dinkins presided over a crack-ravaged city…after Rudy was elected, heroin came back into vogue, and the criminal element mellowed out and got much quieter.
Anyway. The main difference: We all used to be afraid of the crooks. Now we’re afraid of the police.
Hey there. Though crime rates, etc. may have begun to fall pre-Guliani some of (what I consider) the most dramatic reforms were done under his administration. Two examples are the quality of life crimes he clamped down on and the Disneyification of TS.
As for the Subways… well, I live in DC now, and while the Metro is a bit more…sterile than the Subway, the hours it keeps and the limited routes are exasperating. And did you see the article in the Post this morning about possible station closings? Eghads!
Once in a while you can get shown the light
in the strangest of places
if you look at it right…
I hate to be a prick but the guy’s name is spelled Giuliani. Got to get the surname of New York’s next senator correct! Off topic, but Rudy will stomp Hillary. Upstate and the suburbs are solidly Republican, and the outer boroughs love Rudy (they elected him Mayor, didn’t they?) Prediction here is that Rudy walks, 60%-40% at least, and that Hillary takes only Manhattan and maybe Westchester. Second prediction is that Rudy takes at least 35% of the black vote. And 80% of the Italians. And I bet he picks up more than half the Jewish vote, too. He’ll only lose big among upper-middle-class WASPs.
Personally, I am ecstatic about Giuliani’s New York. It’s about time someone got smart about how to handle the city’s policing, unions, etc. The Democratic mayors had too much obligation to too many entrenched interests in the city. Giuliani came in owing no one but the voters, and boy, did he deliver.
“Sherlock Holmes once said that once you have eliminated the
impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be
the answer. I, however, do not like to eliminate the impossible.
The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it that the merely improbable lacks.”
– Douglas Adams’s Dirk Gently, Holistic Detective
Ike and Jorge, what did you like about LaGuardia and Lindsey? What was better about their mayorialship? I was a young’un during Koch, so I don’t have much more than a distant first hand memory of that (though 77 WABC let me get an earful) and Dinkins… well, 'nuff said.
But what was it about La’ and Li’ that made them great mayors? At first I didn’t think you could blame the Starbucks invasion on Giuliani (thanks Lawrence) but then again, he did sell a good chunk of the city to Disney et al. But what made them great as opposed to just better times?
Once in a while you can get shown the light
in the strangest of places
if you look at it right…
*Rhythmdvl: And did you see the article in the Post this morning about possible station closings? Eghads! *
Nope, I missed that story. What stations and why?
Let the Truth of Love be lighted/ Let the Love of Truth shine clear. Sensibility/ Armed with sense and liberty
With the Heart and Mind united in a single/ Perfect/ Sphere. - Rush
Lindsey was Mayor during the late '60s, a period when I was in short pants and most SDMBers were just a glint in Poppa’s eye, so I thought it would be uproarious to cite LaGuardia, who was Mayor during the '30s-'40s.
Fiorello DOES have a jim-dandy tombstone up in the Woodlawn Cemetery, though…see www.findagrave.com. And he did read the funnies over the radio to the children of NYC during the newspaper strike.
As a native New Yorker (born in Hell’s Kitchen) I can tell you that the city is in much better shape under Giuliani. Keep in mind that only in New York City could he be called a Republican, anywhere else he would be considered a Democrat -liberal. In fact, the Liberal party in NY may endorse him, but not the conservative party.
Giuliani’s real strength is that he is flexible and willing to try different things, even if it disagrees with the commonly accepted mindset. He seems to be more interested in what is do-able as opposed to social engineering. For example, the reduction is crime is due to his insistance of treating criminals like criminals, instead of victims. He is absolutely right about the school board in NYC - it has spent billions of dollars and failed horribly the school children. He didn’t like Rudy Crew - well, Crew did not get the job done. How would you like it if your kid was functionally illiterate? And all the employers knew it? He wants to change the system because the system does not work. (FYI - the public school system in NYC is not under the control of the mayor - it is divided among the five borough presidents (all political rivals) and the mayor only has two representatives vs their five).
The same is true for the homeless. Keep in mind that the overwhelming majority of homeless in NYC are people who are drug addicts or alcoholics or mentally disturbed who make a miserable living by panhandling or minor crime, especially against each other.If they are in a public space and refuse to go to a shelter or otherwise accept help or move on, then they would be arrested. They are not locking up someone whose had a fire in their apartment and has to find someplace to stay. All in all Giuliani had done a great job where his immediate predecessors were trying to hold the line. And it shows.
I think Rudi’s done a great job-I was last in the city in June of 1999-in contrast to (10 years earlier)there were no bums and pandhandlers accosting you for spare change. Another positive feature-he got those slimey food vendors off the sidewalks-New yorkers used to call them the “Hepatitis” hostels.
The NY Conservative party will certainly endorse Giuliani for Senator. Who else are they gonna endorse? You know they’re gonna go for the guy who can beat Hillary. Besides, only about eight dead WASPs give a crap who the New York Conservative Party endorses anyway.
