We would always take the train into NYC. The idea of finding a safe place to park was impossible to imagine, and public transit would drop you off right in the middle of midtown. It meant that we rarely went higher than 79th Street in Manhattan on foot … And, for better or worse, getting off the train on 125th Street was simply out of the question for a white suburban kid like me. The outer boroughs were pretty much off limits, too, since it meant either walking or riding the incomprehensible subway system forever. But getting to midtown Manhattan was a regular event. When I was in high school, I think it only cost $5 to ride into Grand Central and back, and I’d go in at least a couple times a month.
Driving your car meant traversing the gauntlet of the Cross Bronx Expressway, and the fear that if your car ever broke down there, you might as well kiss it, and your ass, goodbye. Just driving through that area, it was easy to see the fate of the cars that did break down. They were stripped down to the chassis. For all I knew, they’d been set upon immediately once they rolled to a stop, but thinking back on it, they could have been there for years, and the city just never cleaned them up.
Times Square may have been full of adult movie theatres, but it also had the best cheap electronics stores, where you could try and haggle to get a better price. The windows were filled with all the latest stuff from Japan, but my pockets were usually too empty to afford most of it.
Walking through Central Park always meant being approached by shady characters, who would mutter “smoke, smoke, cocaine” as they passed. I was too broke or oblivious to actually ever take them up on their offer, but was told that it was always a ripoff, and at best, you’d get a baggie full of parsley, and at worst, you’d get your throat slit.
I’m sure the rough 70’s were never as bad as the urban legends of my youth implied, but it was always a hint of danger even in midtown.
