Comments on: What books best describe/approximate what it was like to be in New York City during the 1970s/80s?

Question: What books best describe/approximate what it was like to be in New York City during the 1970s/80s?

lxs — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 07:13:14 -0800

What books best describe/approximate what it was like to be in New York City during the 1970s/80s?

I'm looking for books - both fiction and non-fiction - that give a good idea of what it was like to be in New York City during the 1970s and 80s, the time long-term New Yorkers seem to refer to as the "real" New York. Clearly, I wasn't there, but am fascinated, and so this reading is for my own enjoyment rather than any sort of professional/academic interest.

I've read some of the more obvious choices - fiction like Bright Lights, Big City and The Bonfire of the Vanities - and I like movies like Taxi Driver. I've also searched on some library databases, but have found surprisingly little. I'm mainly just interested in books that show, through fiction or historical accounts, how seamy and interesting the place really was before my tenure here.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated - thanks, in advance!

By: griphus

griphus — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 07:18:19 -0800

American Psycho describes the rich in a different sort of way than Bonfire of the Vanities, but I can't actually vouch for its accuracy. Certainly feels accurate from my experiences with the rich in this city.

Jonathan Lethem's Fortress of Solitude (and, to a lesser extent, Motherless Brooklyn) do a good job with 70s Brooklyn.

By: FlamingBore

FlamingBore — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 07:20:51 -0800

I just read Let The Great World Spin last month and it was described to me as "the story of life in the gritty realness of NY city as seen through the eyes of..."

And it was well written. Enjoy.

By: chesty_a_arthur

chesty_a_arthur — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 07:22:25 -0800

I was a kid during that time, but Laurie Colwin's novels definitely ring true to me.

By: dfriedman

dfriedman — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 07:24:01 -0800

Certain parts of American Psycho are accurate--the brands, clubs, and music.

There are lots of movies that fit this bill: Mean Streets, Manhattan, Annie Hall, Wall St, Working Girl, etc.

Books: Motherless Brooklyn, maybe?

By: griphus

griphus — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 07:24:04 -0800

Oh! Hubert Selby Jr.'s Requiem for a Dream is also a great portrayal of southern Brooklyn in the late 70s.

This question may help you as well.

By: dfriedman

dfriedman — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 07:25:24 -0800

Oh, and there's a Jim Jarmusch movie set on the Lower East Side in the early 1980s, whose name I forget.

By: johnnybeggs

johnnybeggs — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 07:27:22 -0800

Check out Richard Price's work. He's the man. I'd recommend starting with "Blood Brothers." It's about coming of age in Co-Op City and it broke my heart when I first read it.

By: roomthreeseventeen

roomthreeseventeen — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 07:27:35 -0800

Sarah Schulman's People in Trouble is a good fictitious account of the early days of the AIDS crisis in NYC

By: millipede

millipede — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 07:33:26 -0800

I just finished Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx", which was excellent and engaging and gives you a very clear picture of life in the Bronx in the 80s and through the 90s.

By: lukemeister

lukemeister — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 07:44:37 -0800

I know you said books, but check out Do the Right Thing and Summer of Sam by Spike Lee.

By: Melismata

Melismata — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 07:49:36 -0800

The YA novel The Two Worlds of Jill has some good descriptions of the city, such as Soho. Also, Judy Blume's "Fudge" series has a lot of good tidbits. For example, in the first book "Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing" he describes the elevator man in his apartment building; then in a later book he talks about how they just got a new automatic elevator.

By: elizardbits

elizardbits — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 07:51:32 -0800

Previously.

By: FlamingBore

FlamingBore — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 07:53:58 -0800

FYI, Sarah Schulman's People in Trouble is long rumored, and very likely, the partial original source material for RENT.

By: Wylie Kyoto

Wylie Kyoto — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 08:10:33 -0800

"The Bronx is Burning: 1977, Baseball, Politics, and the Battle for the Soul of a City" by Jonathan Mahler - Blackout, Son of Sam, Yankees. I don't usually enjoy non-fiction but this was very engaging.

By: lunasol

lunasol — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 08:16:27 -0800

Slaves of New York

By: Your Time Machine Sucks

Your Time Machine Sucks — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 08:17:26 -0800

After Hours is almost the only Scorsese film I like and in its meandering and unserious way it manages to nail the feeling of downtown in the first half of the 80s, mostly by operating from the perspective of someone for whom it is terra incognito.

I thought the film of American Psycho was a good film but not very accurate in terms of the raw vibe of the city that it recreates, but I actually think that's not a mark against it considering the disassociated story it's telling. It's a little too shiny. Wall Street has a more accurate take on the maddening rich-people culture of the 1980s (unsurprising since it was current when it was made), particularly the risible romantic-pasta/sushi dinner.

Slaves of New York does a pretty good job at summing up the sense of a particular place and time in Manhattan.

By: Your Time Machine Sucks

Your Time Machine Sucks — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 08:26:56 -0800

Also, as long as you take it with a grain of salt, there is a lot right with Desperately Seeking Susan. The costuming is good, the downtown interiors and exteriors are right, Madonna had only a few years earlier had her breakthrough in the NY club scene so she had a reason for being in that movie, and the importance of the Voice personals to the plot reflected reality.

By: swngnmonk

swngnmonk — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 08:38:30 -0800

As a teenager in NYC in the 80s, I must say thatFortress of Solitude, by Jonathan Lethem (who also wrote Motherless Brooklyn) is an accurate a portrayal of NYC as I remember it. It's also a great book.

By: ouke

ouke — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 08:42:49 -0800

While growing up, there was only one 'real' New York for me and that was the New York I knew from the TV-series Kojak. When I went to NYC in the early eighties for the 1st time, I wasn't disappointed. Years later I found the bizarro travel guide New York unexpurgated by Petronius. The ultimate guide for the sick and the depraved. Where to get your best porn, where to pick up single ladies, where to meet naked males, where to score you Mary Jane: it's all there. Written in the sixties, but it still describes the Kojak New York I learned to love. I still read it once in a while and it is still the most amazing description of New York I ever read. Easy to get on Ebay for a few bucks.

By: Afroblanco

Afroblanco — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 09:29:41 -0800

This essay by Luc Sante is a really good place to start.

It's an excerpt from Low Life, one of my favorite books about NYC.

By: Lutoslawski

Lutoslawski — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 10:24:26 -0800

Came to say Fortress of Solitude as well. Not always a fan of the semi-magic-realism, nostalgia novels by hip bklyn writers, but this one is a good one.

By: SisterHavana

SisterHavana — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 10:58:55 -0800

Story of My Life by Jay McInerney.

Sheila Levine is Dead and Living In New York by Gail Parent

By: scody

scody — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 13:01:39 -0800

Jim Carroll's Forced Entries covers New York's downtown arts (and drug) scene of the early '70s (plus an interlude in Northern California).

By: Violet Hour

Violet Hour — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 14:48:25 -0800

Seconding Let the Great World Spin (set in 1974). I love, love, love this book.

I also loved When You Reach Me by Rachel Stead, which is set in 1979.

Not books, but I am currently obsessed with these pictures.

By: tallus

tallus — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 14:51:56 -0800

there's a Jim Jarmusch movie set on the Lower East Side in the early 1980s, whose name I forget
Stranger than Paradise?

By: dfriedman

dfriedman — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 18:40:44 -0800

Yes, Stranger than Paradise. Thanks!

By: brujita

brujita — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 23:40:34 -0800

Parts of Erica Jong's Fear of Flying and How to Save Your Own Life. Norma Klein.
Paula Danziger's Remember Me to Harold Square.
Mary Rogers' Freaky Friday and sequels Summer Switch and A Billion for Boris.

By: Violet Hour

Violet Hour — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 01:04:44 -0800

There's also this article Rememberance of an Art Scene in a Downtown Past.