New York in the 70s

This is just something I've been thinking about lately...

New York in the 70s was notorious for its drugs, violence and porn. I was just curious what it was like to be on Broadway or seeing Broadway shows during this time. I've just always found it strange that famous actors and actresses like Angela Lansbury performed in Broadway theaters only a short distance away from the squalor of Times Square and lived with the dangers of living in New York during this time.

There was a huge dichotomy. You had to walk past some of the messiest aspects of humanity to get inside to see some of the most wonderful productions.

Lena Horne makes a joke in her recorded show "Lena Horne: The Lady & Her Music" about how normally nobody ventured down to 41st Street, but that she was having no problems getting people in.

It wasn't the porn and prostitutes that were so bad. You could ignore them and keep walking. It was the homeless and drug addicts that were the problems. Having to step around an addict vomiting in the street or a homeless person peeing on the sidewalk or a mentally ill person running at you, or the lowlifes that hung near the subway eyeing who they could steal from. Times Square was an umpleasant area, but really it was the entire city. Central Park was a huge mess. The Lower East Side was just as bad or worse than Times Square. Really, the whole city was a mess.

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Updated On: 6/22/11 at 10:16 AM

I would prefer those hookers and shady types to the hideous hordes of tourists on 8th Ave today, but that's another topic - which do you prefer, the banality of safety and cleanliness or the reality of sex and violence?

Isn't there an in-between? I certainly would prefer a more authentic experience when I'm in Times Square, but don't know how much of a threat of violence I really want.

I'm far too young to have been in New York in the 70s, but I must admit that I'm really fascinated by it. My mother was in nursing school at St. Vincent's in the mid to late 70s and although she was mugged at least once, she said she never really felt that unsafe.

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My fondest memory was always eating at Brew Burger whenever I went. I can also remember a class trip where they actually let us off the bus on 42nd around 8th and let us walk around. I remember it being seedy and everyone saying "keep your hands in your pockets and put your wallet in your socks". I took my first NYC cab ride one day from the train station to the Martin Beck Theater to see "Dracula" with Frank Langella. I arrived in NYC late and had 10 minutes to get to the theater for curtain. I was in my seat by 1:58. The scariest and most fun cab ride ever. I loved Times Square back then. It seemed to be more interesting than it is now. Loved standing at TKTS and people watching.

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Thank god nobody gets mugged, robbed, beaten or stabbed in New York any more.

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The whole of "The Tipping Point" is worth reading, but the chapter on New York in the 70s and Bernie Goetz are particularly interesting (I thought).

Also, this issue of grit and authenticity vs. sanitized safety really ties in with gentrification, and I would recommend anyone interested in that evolution read Sharon Zukin's "Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places."
Naked City

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I don't ever remember being afraid while walking in the theatre district or on 42nd Street during the 1970's. If you held your head up and looked into the eyes of passersby, there was generally no problem. At the same time, the New York Theatre was going through the doldrums, with exceptions, of course. So I wasn't in the theatre district that much. I missed some shows I later regretted not seeing, like Jule Styne's HALLELUIA! BABY.

As someone mentioned, the hoards of tourists on the now squeaky clean if garish 42nd Street, and also along Broadway, are suffocating and annoying; but if they are going to the theatre, I guess they can't be all bad.

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How about some more pleasant memories?

Eating pancakes at midnight in a window booth at the Howard Johnson's, where that American Eagle shop is now,

The Clash causes a riot at Bond's, when it was a disco,

Copping a nickel bag of oregano from the nice man at the Hotel Carter,

Holding up the cardboard fake ID template for the camera so your face goes into the cutout in the picture, and

Learning the hard way why you really should use the locks on the booths at Show World.

Yay, broadway local. Your memories match a bunch of my own.

As soon as I was college-age with enough spending money, I'd pack myself on a train from Boston to New York to cram in a weekend (or week) of show-going. Best single week of 1975: seeing current cast of Pippin, OBC of Chicago, and OBC of A Chorus Line. (And 13th-row orchestra seat for ACL was $15.) None of the sleazy goings on on 42nd St. or 8th Ave ever dampened the spirits of a 19-year-old on the loose in NYC, believe me. The bulbs circling the marquees, the fabled shows with lines waiting for cancellation tickets, the stage doors from which at any minute you could get a glimpse of Angela Lansbury (in Gypsy) or Gwen Verdon was all exactly the same to me as the buffed-up cleaned up version is to any drama-queen kid hitting the street today.

In fact, most of my visits to Broadway shows were mixed in with visits to the Gaiety (right next to broadwaylocal's Howard Johnson's and up a flight of stairs) or Showworld's peep booths on 8th Ave. Turned out to be a terrific way to marry seeing a great show and getting a turn-on in my impressionable young mind, a one-two combo that's kept me coming back to broadway shows ever since. :

Did I ever get mugged on the street? Yeah, once in broad daylight on the sidewalk at 42nd St by the Public Library (Needle Park was the name for Bryant Park right behind me), some guy demanded the gold chain around my neck. Weirdly I managed to talk him out of it, but was seriously shaken for the rest of the day. Did it alter my affection for Times Square and the lure of Broadway?

ARE YOU KIDDIN'? (Said in Gwen Verdon's inimitable voice.)

Around what year did NYC begin to change?

When did New York change into the New York of today?

I have to say i was looking forward to reading this thread because of my intrest in NY in the 70s and 80s. However as someone who is from the UK and visits New York a lot so could be considered a 'tourist' i find the attitude from the people on here disgusting. Without those tourists you would not have a theatre district.

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Times Square has always welcomed and expected tourists as a necessary part of who they are. But there is a BIG difference between catering to tourists and losing your identity to them.

While they shouldn't shut tourists out, they shouldn't let them call the shots either and decide what will be there (more or less). The same thing goes, IMO, for the shows running in the Theatre District. But the almighty dollar has spoken, I guess.

I'm glad Times Square is safer now than it was in the '70s, and I wouldn't want the hookers and drug dealers again, but it's so much more sterile than it was back then.

It's like junk food that tastes really good but is bad for you, versus health food that is safe but tastes like cardboard.

We're living in cardboard times (or Times?) right now.


When did New York change into the New York of today?

I'm not sure I understand your question. If you're looking for a specific date, there isn't one. It's a "work in progress" and always has been, so what you see in the streets today evolved over many years and decades. It didn't just spring up on August 28, 1994, or something like that.

But this is definitely the "corporate era" Times Square.

Three major things contributed to what it is right now: the Disneyfication of Times Square, when the hookers and drug dealers were cleared out, the lift on the ban against selling air rights, so that corporations could build on top of existing theatres and structures (which sadly obliterated most of the sky), and yet another advancement in technology for billboards and ads. Times Square has always had cutting-edge ads (going back to the 1920s), but a big leap in LED screens, computer tech, etc., brought us to the "look" it has today.

I think it looks like something out of Bladerunner now.

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