The Taking of New York City: Crime on the Screen and in the Streets of the Big Apple in the 1970s

For a time in the 1970s, New York City seemed to many to be genuinely on the cusp of collapse. Plagued by rampant crime, graft, catastrophic finances, and crumbling infrastructure, it served as a symbol for the plight of American cities after the convulsions of the 1960s. This tale of urban blight was reinforced wherever one looked—whether in the news media (memorably captured in the infamous New York Daily News headline “Ford to City: Drop Dead”) or the countless movies that evoked the era...