Urban development flashbacks - the New York Magazine archives on Google

[tablemtn]

A few years ago, Google Books put most issues of New York magazine online, covering the period from April 1968 to December 1997. These are fully-scanned issues, ads and all, rather than just text versions of old articles.

Browse all issues - New York Magazine

New York magazine has tried to go a bit more "national" in recent years with its reporting, but in the older days, it was proudly parochial, and the archives are full of stories about urban development (or decay) in NYC.

A few samples:

Brave New Times Square - April 1984 (describing proposals to redevelop Times Square)

The Future New York - A Tale of Two Cities - an July 1979 essay on NYC's potential futures

Harlem on my Mind - a photo gallery and article about Harlem's character and history from January 1969

Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland - a September 1979 essay by Mario Puzo pleading for Coney Island's character to be preserved

The Japanning of New York - an August 1981 article about the sudden emergence of Japanese money and influence in NYC

The Vertical Village - a lengthy March 1981 profile of the residents of a high-rise on 2nd Ave. and 34th St. in Manhattan

The Hot Suburbs - an October 1988 profile of several trendy NYC-area suburbs

An Adult's Guide to New York - a November 1971 piece by the economist John Kenneth Galbraith on the social classes of NYC

Portrait of an Aging Hustler - writer Orde Coombs profiles a Manhattan male prostitute as he faces his mid-30's in December 1979

Aside from the feature articles, one of the most interesting parts of the magazine are the listings in the back - by the early 1980's the magazine dramatically expanded in size and began publishing "Cue," its listings of entertainment options in the city - movies, theater, art, music/dance, other events, restaurants, nightlife, and radio/TV schedules. These are time capsules of "price and place". For example, here is a Cue guide for early April, 1984:

CUE - a complete entertainment guide for the week beginning April 11, 1984

One of the issues that keeps coming up in the discussion of cities is that of history - what happened when, and how did people feel about it at the time? The New York Magazine archives are helpful for that purpose. It's one thing to make a claim about what happened in the past, but quite another to pull up a published article from a specific month and year and see what writers were writing back then.

[MolsonExport]

nice find

[fflint]

Fascinating!

I've read some articles from their first few issues, published in 1968, that have included interviews with residents in a neighborhood changing from Jewish to Black, the sociological, aesthetic and architectural opposition to the construction of Co-Op city, the issue of safety in the subways, the student rebellion at Columbia University over the construction of a gymnasium that involved evicting tons of nearby black residents and wiping out their former homes, an investigation into why it's taking so long to achieve trains "between Boston and Washington at speeds comparable to air travel", the debate of centralization v. decentralization, the furor over the proposal to build the Pan Am building over Grand Central...just fascinating and startlingly relevant stuff.

What a chronicle not only of one great city, but really, of city life itself.

[CCs77]

Very good and interesting thread!!
Thanks for posting.

Originally Posted by tablemtn

The Future New York - A Tale of Two Cities - an July 1979 essay on NYC's potential futures

I just read this one, it is pretty good. It was the time when it was a turning point for NY, when the decay began to end and new prosperity was envisioned.

These days the boosters are everywhere. After decades of decay, we hear, prosperity is just around the corner. "New York will rise again!" proclaims Sam Lefrak, the city's largest private developer. "You can see it, you can smell it, you can touch it, you can taste it."

It has some stories about the early stages of gentrification, including some of people displaced by it.

Also have people talking about how they think the city will evolve in the future, such as this as this relatively more pesimistic view of Ed Potter

Over the next twenty years, he says tersely, "Manhattan will continue to get better, Queens should stay stable and Middle Class, the Bronx will be the center of the city's poverty population and Brooklyn wil be a big question mark. I see all The Bronx, excepts enclaves like Riverdale, getting Worse---Even Pelham Parkway losing people"

The fact was that Manhattan did get better and with wealth incresingly concentrated there, but the recovery of the Bronx was remarkable, very far of his pesimistic prophecy, and much of Brooklyn became a trendy place.

Talking about Harlem and the begining of gentrification of some areas and the rising desaribilty of Townhomes there:

Some of these rival the best the west side has to offer. Values range from $85,000 for turreted townhouses in stately Hamilton Heights to $3,000 for abandoned brownstones in dangerous neighborhoods

Those prices are now completely unheard off! 3000 to 85000 dollars for a brownstone! Now you can't find that prices for even the most dilapidated brownstone, because just the land is more worthed...