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  #41  
Old Posted Jul 12, 2009, 6:12 PM
fleonzo fleonzo is offline
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Originally Posted by Duffstuff129 View Post
What baffles me is that some people want this (depraved, crime-ridden, poor environment (and scary, creepy old Times Square) back.

And what's worse is that some people still think that NY looks like that! Oy!

However, great pictures. I find it kind of funny that a lot of those 80's pictures seem to be taken from a helicopter. I feel for the photographer, I wouldn't want to step foot on those streets back then.
You're right and a lot people don't realize how delicate things can be and "less we forget so easily so that we won't revert back to those times."
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  #42  
Old Posted Jul 12, 2009, 7:55 PM
Crawford Crawford is offline
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Originally Posted by fleonzo View Post
You're right and a lot people don't realize how delicate things can be and "less we forget so easily so that we won't revert back to those times."
Well, not really. Those abandoned buildings and vacant lots were so prominent in Harlem for a variety of reasons that could not easily be replicated.

Harlem did NOT look like that because of disinvestment, at least not primarily. The story of Harlem abandonment is completely different than in other U.S. neighborhoods. It looked similar, but the underlying reasons were very different.

The horrible pics you see are all city-owned land. They were NOT abandoned or neglected by the private sector. They were all purchased by the city for redevelopment.

What happened is that the city took title to HUGE amounts of land in the 1960's and 1970's for high-rise redevelopment (similar to many of the towers you see in the background), but the city went broke in 1976.

Following 1976, all urban renewal projects were put on hold for financial reasons, meaning that vast city-owned swaths of Harlem were left to rot. By the late 1980's, you had huge sections of Harlem that looked like a bomb hit.

Beginning in the early 1990's the city's economy had recovered, and the city decided to enter into public/private parterships with developers to build mixed-income housing on all these sites.

These are the newer buildings you now see. They are mostly condo buildings built by the private sector, with a percentage of the units reserved for moderate income people.

NYC has basically run out big plots of land in Harlem for city-sponsored redevelopment, so now they are turning to privately owned land, and will build taller towers on smaller plots of land.
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  #43  
Old Posted Aug 10, 2009, 2:33 PM
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rapid_business rapid_business is offline
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unreal...
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  #44  
Old Posted Aug 11, 2009, 2:21 AM
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DavidKuitunen DavidKuitunen is offline
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Originally Posted by Ex-Ithacan View Post
So yes, it can be done. There's plenty of fertile ground in US cities which could see similar changes. And if the price of gas continues its climb, I bet more sections of older cities will see folks moving back in and new development. Thanks for sharing your find.
Give it another twenty years and inner-cities around the world will be revitalized while sprawling auto oriented aglomorations degenerate. It's nice to see New York is getting ahead of the curve. Very impressive! Cool thread.
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  #45  
Old Posted Jun 26, 2011, 11:54 AM
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How did I miss this fantastic thread?
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  #46  
Old Posted Jan 19, 2017, 5:50 PM
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Would be amazing to see how much it's changed since 2007. I bet the change way more pronounced now.
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