← All Of It with Alison Stewart
All Of It with Alison Stewart
The Gods of New York' Spotlights the 80s
00:35:15
A new book from Jonathan Mahler posits that the years from 1986 to 1990 were some of the most important in New York City history.
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A
This is all of it. I'm Alison Stewart live from the WNYC studios in soho. Thank you for spending part of your day with us. I'm really grateful that you're here today. We're going to look ahead to the school year, and we're also looking ahead to a few projects involved in the New York City public schools. We'll also talk about the music of Mark Bolan with the filmmakers behind a new documentary about his and the making of a T. Rex tribute album. And we'll speak to artist and Reverend Joyce McDonald about her testimonial sculpture which reflects on her activism and her life as an AIDS survivor. That's our plan. So let's get this started with a trip back to New York in the late 1980s.
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1989. The number under the summer sound of the funky drummer music hitting your heart. Cause I know you got soul. Listen, if you're missing y' all swinging while I'm singing Giving what you're getting. Knowing what I knowin'. While the black man sweating in the rhythm I'm rolling. Gotta give us what we want. Gotta give us what we need. Our freedom of speech is freedom of death. We gotta fight the powers that be. Fight the power. Fight the power. Fight the power. Fight the power.
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A
Fight the power. It is hard to overstate how much the spirit of public enemies Fight the power explained New York in the late 1980s. You may remember it from Spike Lee's film Do the Right Thing, released in 1989. Both the song and the movie captured the social climate and intense racial division of the city at that time. In his new book, New York Times Magazine, staff writer Jonathan Mahler makes the case for those four years, 1986 to 1990, that they were crucial for forming the modern New York we know today. If you were there, you know Wall Street's boom and bust, the AIDS crisis, the crack epidemic, the rise of hip hop, the major figures, mostly men, who played a big part in shaping the late 1980s. You know them, Koch, Trump, Giuliani, Dinkins, Sharpton and Kramer. And then there were the legal cases that dominated the New York conversation. Howard Beach, Bernie Getz, Yusef Hawkins, and the preppy murder trial, the flames of which were fanned by the powerful daily tabloids and their shrieking headlines. The book, the Gods of New Egotists, Idealists, Opportunists and the Birth of the Modern City, 1986-1990. Jonathan Mehler is in studio right now. You might recognize him from his book. Ladies and gentlemen, the Bronx is Burning.
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C
Welcome thanks so much for having me. Nice to see you bobbing your head along to the Public Enemy.
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A
I'm so excited by this segment. I gotta calm down. Let me calm down. First of all, how did you identify 1986 to 1990 as the years you wanted to concentrate on?
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C
Yeah, well, kind of narratively they were convenient because this was. They were, they were Koch's last term as mayor. So it was sort of, you know, the story begins with his inauguration in 1986 and, you know, ends with him losing and in fact, Dinkins being inaugurated in 1990. So it was kind of, you know, his last term sort of forms the spine of the story. But beyond that, it was just a crazy four years where so much happened. And, you know, you mentioned some of the events in the introduction, but, you know, from the crack epidemic to the AIDS crisis to all of these kind of iconic kind of racial events from Howard beach to Tawana Brawley and on and on. It's also the great Black Monday crash on Wall street, which kind of threw the city's finances upside down. So it was such like just a crazily eventful four years. And it was also kind of an important in determining the future of the city. It was really a year where there was a kind of a struggle for the identity of New York. And the years, I would say, when New York really kind of made the transformation from being what it had once been, this kind of great working class city into a city really powered by Wall street, by finance, by real estate, and we're still living in that city today. So I also saw those four years as just being kind of seminal for the identity of New.
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A
What happened during that period of time that you think has been misunderstood or overlooked?
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C
Yeah, I mean, I would say that. I think that, you know, people sort of take the city's current kind of identity and current kind of, you know, economic model and this idea of New York being a city of rich and poor and of, you know, with a kind of a hollowed out middle class that is, people sort of just sort of take that city for granted and sort of just assume that that's what New York always. And I think that, you know, it's, it's. There was a starting point for this New York and decisions were made that kind of created this New York. And I think it's kind of important to, to identify that moment. And, you know, and then I would also just kind of say additionally that, that, you know, people. People. Well, you know, just to take one example, Donald Trump. I think people People, there's, there's a. There's a misconception, I think, that Donald Trump was kind of created by the Apprentice, that that was Donald Trump's crucible. And, you know, I think that, that really, you need to go back to 1980s New York, to the sort of tabloid culture of New York then, and to. That was really Donald Trump's crucible. And so, so I think that, you know, there's also just. Just to understand the kind of political moment we've arrived at now. This is, this is the best starting point, listeners.
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We want you to think back to the years 1986 to 1990. What did it feel like to live in New York then? What was the energy? What are your memories that you associate with that time period? Our Phone number is 2124-3396-9221-2433. WNYC. Were you a supporter of Ed Koch? Did you vote for Dinkins? Did you follow any of the big stories at the time? Bernie Getz, Tawana Brawley, The Central Park Killers? Preppy Killer? The Preppy Killer. Were you a loyal reader of the tabloids like the Post or the Daily News? Did you participate in any AIDS or racial justice protests? Time. Give us a call. 2124-3396-9221-2433. WNYC. I was gonna save this for the end of it, but it really has been bothering me. Not bothering me. I've just been wondering about it. Can you think of one thing that happened during that time? It could be a small thing. It could be a big thing that really leads to the biggest issue in the city, in my humble opinion, right now, which is income inequality.
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C
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that the, the. That. I would say that. That there were decisions that were made really, you know, in large measure to kind of get the city's economy moving again, right? So we're talking about big tax breaks to real estate developers, big tax breaks to corporations to stay in the city rather than moving out of the city, which is what they were doing back in the kind of dark days of the 70s. So to me, those. Those decisions which were kind of advantaging, you know, giving financial advantages and financial incentives to corporations and to real estate developers was, you know, kind of an important, very important sort of specific policy decision that kind of led to this sort of widening income gap.
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A
You touch on the 1970s in this book. What was important to know about the crisis of the seventies and how it. And how the city recovered that set the stage for the 80s.
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C
Yeah. So I mean, really this book is kind of the chapter after the 70s. The 80s, of course. And what happened is that, you know, in the 70s, the city, you know, the city was in just kind of despair. Its economy was wiped out. All the factories had closed, had left New York. Deindustrialization over the course of the 60s and 70s. And you know, everyone remembers the kind of iconic images of New York from the 70s when they were here.
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A
Drop dead.
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C
Exactly, exactly, exactly. Ford to city, drop dead. And the subway's covered in graffiti. You can think of movies like the warriors or Taxi Driver. And what happened in the 80s was that a whole new city was kind of built on the ashes of that city. A city of skyscrapers, the city of Trump Tower. And so it was a story, the 80s was a story of kind of the rebirth of New York and the renaissance of New York. But it was, you know, to call it a rebirth or a renaissance is obviously really reductive and in fact misleading because a lot of people were left out of this rebirth. And so that's, you know, the 70s kind of set the stage for this rebirth, but it was very much a.
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A
Selective rebirth we're talking about locally. But how did Reaganomics factor.
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C
Yeah, sure. So that was a big part of it as well. I mean, you had a, you had a theory of, of economic growth that was, look, if we cut taxes, if we deregulate the markets, that will get the capital flowing. And that's, that's in fact what Reagan did. And the idea was that, well, that that money would trickle down, trickle down economics was the idea that that money will trickle down to, to, to the, the poor, the middle class and the poorer. And you know, history has, has shown that, that, that, that didn't work terribly well. So, but, you know, part of, part of the city's decision to kind of throw its lot in with, with Wall street and with, with real estate was, was driven by, by, by the decisions coming out of Washington and by Reagan. Yeah.
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A
What was different, we're going to talk about them individually, but what was different about leaders at this time compared to earlier leaders?
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C
Yeah, I mean, I would say that there was a, this, there was a, there was a way in which the city was, was sort of up for grabs in this moment. And, and there was also something going on that was an interesting thing was happening with the media, which was that a lot of the papers had shut down, but New York still had these three big tabloids, the Post, the Daily News and Newsday. And so they commanded A great deal of power and really, really kind of drove the narrative in the city. And so I think that leaders, whether we're talking about elected leaders like Ed Koch or unelected leaders like Al Sharpton or like Donald Trump, recognized that the city was up for grabs. The city was going through some kind of transform, and that these tabloids were a great place to sort of wield power to. To sort of. To. To. If you could. If you could kind of capture the. The tabloids, you could capture the city. So I think that's that. That's this moment when. When we saw, you know, it's not a surprise that that's sort of where Donald Trump learned how to. How to. How to. How to. How to control a story, how to basically grab hold of the public's attention. Really, the idea, the attention economy is what we call it now. He recognized it, even Sharpton and many others. And so that, I would say, is kind of what distinguished these leaders, and that's what enabled them to become such kind of crazily outsized figures. I mean, almost kind of, I call them the gods of New York, sort of, you know, it's obviously tongue in cheek. They're not Judeo Christian gods. They're like Greek gods with New York as their kind of Mount Olympus. And that's what allowed them to become like gods.
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A
It's interesting. We got a text here that says Steinbrenner and Trump doing whatever it took to appear in the New York Post.
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C
Exactly.
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Following up on what you said.
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Yes.
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This text says, my dad used to work in the city, and I remember picking him up in Times Square. We used to not to know. We used to not to know how even to react. I was so young, I usually broke out in laughter at the porn theaters everywhere. My kids cannot comprehend how seedy it was. It was crazy intriguing. And now it is all gone.
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Yeah.
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Let's talk to Jerry, who's calling in from Forest Hills. Hi, Jerry. Thanks for making the time to call Olive in.
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D
Hi, Alice. Thank you for having me on. I just wanted to say I love your show. So, Yeah, I mean, 1986 to 1990 were critical years to me. Those are the years I was in high school, you know, so. And I went to high school on the Lower east side of Manhattan. And I used to commute. Commute by train. You know, I used to take the L train from Lunsburg at the time. So, I mean, I definitely saw a lot of change. And with, obviously, Mayor Koch at the time, you know, we had the closing of Greenpoint Hospital. And that was also a critical time growing up. And of course, it was the aids, you know, was, was, was, he was a big person involved in that as well. So, I mean, you know, so there was a lot of protest and a lot of, of things to really go against to what he was doing at the time. So. But yeah, I saw a lot of change in the identity of New York City for sure.
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A
Jerry, thanks so much for calling in. I'm speaking with Jonathan Mahler, staff writer for the New York Times Magazine and author of the new book the Gods of New Egotists, Idealists, Opportunists, and the Birth of the modern city, 1986 to 1990. We're also hearing from you, what did it feel like to live in New York during those years? 212-433-9621, 2433, WNYC. Let's talk about Mayor Kotch. He used to say, how am I doing? How am I doing? What was his reputation as mayor?
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C
Yeah, well, I mean, it's interesting and I want to pick up on one thing that caller said, but first, in terms of Koch, I mean, he was a beloved figure. I mean, it's almost hard to imagine now he was an international celebrity. I mean, he was the mayor of New York, but he was just known as the mayor all over the and that he was really beloved in New York for years. But during these particular years, 1986 to 1990, things kind of turned and the city really turned on him. I think they began to see the sort of both the kind of wages of the cost of the rebirth that he had presided over. And I think they began to feel like he was insensitive to a lot of the suffering and a lot of the problems the city was facing. Which actually connects to the, the point the caller was making about that hospital closure. You know, you had part of the fallout from the 70s was the city had to cut costs, had to cut expenses. So they had to close hospitals, they had to cut back on healthcare spending. Of course, that happened just before the AIDS epidemic arrived. So the city was totally ill prepared to deal with the AIDS epidemic. And so, you know, Koch gets blamed by the activist community and by others, too for having kind of failed to deal with the AIDS cris.
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A
This text says don't forget the huge Parking Violations Bureau scandal that Koch absurdly pretended to know nothing about. Would you explain?
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C
Yeah, there was a great, so really days into this term, his third term, the Queensborough president at the time, a guy named Donald Manus, who's Mostly forgotten by history, but was kind of a big, big figure in New York at the time. Sort of pulls over, is pulled over by some cops out by Shea Stadium, and it looks like he's been stabbed. And this big mystery for days. No one knows in the city knows. It's known as the Manus mystery. What happened to Donald Manus? He finally speaks a couple days later, says, I was mugged and at knifepoint. But there were a lot of holes in his story, like his wallet hadn't been taken and, you know, a handful of other things. It turns out that he had tried to commit suicide because the FBI was. Was on his trail for, like, a massive kickback scheme in the parking violations Bureau. He was basically selling. Selling contracts to collect. To collect tickets for the. For the city. He does. Eventually, you know, weeks later, after, after, after Giuliani, who is the U.S. attorney at the time, is preparing to indict him, Manus does successfully kill himself. So, yeah.
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A
Before we lead at leave, Ed Koch, did anyone care he was gay?
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C
Well, the gay community and Larry Kramer in particular, the founder of ACT up, was obsessed with outings at Koch. So he certainly cared. He blamed Koch's inaction on aids, on Koch's, on the fact that Koch was in the closet. And his contention was that Koch didn't want to draw attention to the gay community because it would just lead to accusations of him being gay. So the amazing thing is he was. I mean, he. He denied it. I mean, he actually felt the need to come out and say, I am not a homosexual. I mean, that is.
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A
And this is Bess Meyerson.
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Exactly. He had his beard. Who was a former Miss America, the first Jewish Miss America, Bess Meyerson. And he toted her around with him and made jokes about how there could be a marriage someday at Gracie Mansion, A wedding at Gracie Mansion. But if you want to look for kind of a sort of a silver lining in all this, it's, you know, it does say a lot about how much we as a. As a kind of culture have changed that. At the time, I mean, the mayor of New York felt that he could not be out. So we've come a long way since then, at least in, in that sense. But. But, yeah, it was. It's quite something.
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A
He.
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D
He.
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Yeah, yeah. We got a text that says, sadly, as a closeted gay man, Koch turned his back on the AIDS crisis.
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Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think that a lot of people felt that way. Yeah.
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We are talking about the book the Gods of New York with Jonathan Mahler. Staff writer for the New York Times Magazine. If you'd like to get in our conversation, you can give us a call. You can tell us what it felt like to live in New York City in the years of 1986 to 1990. Our number is 2124-339692-21241, 3433. WNYC. We'll have more of your calls, and we'll have more with Jonathan after a quick break. You're listening to all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. I'm speaking with Jonathan Mahler, staff writer at the New York Times Magazine and author of the new book the Gods of New Egotists, Idealists, Opportunists and the Birth of the Modern City, 1986-1990. You said you were part time in New York at that time?
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C
Yeah, yeah. I was in college in Chicago, so I would come back on vacation and check out all the craziness. But also I was an avid reader of the Village Voice and from afar. And so I was kind of following everything that was happening here.
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A
I moved here on 818 8. It's not a password anymore for anybody asking. But yeah, that was my first day. And then I went to work at MTV the next week, making $17,000 a year as an assistant.
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C
So Tompkins Square would have been right then.
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A
Yeah, that was. Oh, my gosh, I had friends who lived. That was huge. But one thing that I saw going around me as a kid making very little money was the boom of Wall street. The luxury buildings, the office space. Wall street was thriving. We were living in 400 square feet, three of us. But tell us a little bit about Wall street in the 80s.
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C
Yeah, yeah. I mean, really what happened was that it was kind of this amazing kind of confluence of events. Both, both Reagan, who comes into office in 1980, and as we were talking about a bit earlier, has this real kind of free market. Milton Friedman, let's deregulate, let's encourage as much kind of trading activity and kind of esoteric investment vehicles as we can at the same time that technology is enabling traders to start sort of trading bigger blocks of stock faster. So everything just kind of starts to accelerate during these years. Wall street starts going absolutely bonkers. It starts gobbling up, you know, investment firms start gobbling up all the empty office space that had been left by, you know, companies like Exxon and all these, these Coca Cola, these old kind of consumer goods and manufacturing companies that had once been in the city and, and New York kind of gradually becomes a Wall street city. And then all that money, that, that Wall street and the bonuses of course, drives the real estate market. So New York, which had once been, you know, really a city of, of renters starts to become a, a, a city of, with, with quite a few owners of, of multi million dollar apartment buildings which you know, of course, you know, drives the sort of open, opens a bigger hole in, in, in the kind of heart of the, the sort of the class structure in New York.
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A
Let this is Dan from Astoria calling in. Hi Dan, thanks for calling in.
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B
How you doing? This is Danny, Dan calling in from Astoria.
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A
Right.
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B
Just calling with a reference back to 1990. I was 17 years old, just got my black belt in karate and wanted to use it. So I joined the New York Guardian Angels and we patrolled Times Square and there was a martial arts supply store right on the court, right on the middle of 42nd street where all kids, all teenagers got to, where you bought your nunchucks, your Chinese stars, your Bruce Lee books, all kinds of knives, all kinds of things that you cannot even get your hands on nowadays. And we patrolled. And I remember Curtis back then was a great leader, good guy, and it's great to see him now in the race and just wanted to end with that. I don't think we'll ever get those days back.
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A
Dan, thanks for calling. Let's talk to Anthony from Brooklyn. Hi, Anthony, thank you so much for making time. Time to call all of it.
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B
Hi, I'd like to respond to Jonathan Mahler's comment about AIDS in New York City. AIDS was very different from COVID in that the disease was incredibly visible on the street. You could see clearly opportunistic infections that people were surviving and the streets were like a war zone. And it also allowed the government and government neglect allowed for this expression of homophobic violence. And it was, it was a frightening time in New York City.
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A
Yes, it was.
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B
And also to respond to Jonathan's comment about Larry Kramer as the founder of ACT up. ACT UP was formed out of a community response to Larry's talk at the Gay and Lesbian Community Center. Larry would occasionally show up and have a hissy fit.
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D
But.
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A
I do want to explain though that in your book you get into this in detail. I just wanted to explain. Anthony and Anthony, thank you so much for calling in. But it does get deep into the book. We're kind of going over the top. Let's talk to Edward in Manhattan. Hey, Edward, you have something that you say Koch did which was really important.
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B
It, it's the most important thing any mayor has ever done. He created the Pooper Cooper Law. And prior to Ed Koch, walking in the city was disgusting. And I won't use any words because.
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D
We'Re on the radio.
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However, he. I see people today, people in their 20s, 30s, walking their dogs, picking up what the dogs have done. And I say to them, have you ever heard of Mayor Koch? And they say, no. So I tell them about Mayor Koch and the Pooper Super War. So he'll be remembered for that in my mind forever.
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A
Thank you for the call. Did you want to respond to any of our callers who called in?
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C
I mean, I think, yeah, that's absolutely right. Regarding the Pooper Scooper law, it had made a huge, huge difference in terms of the AIDS crisis. Absolutely. I mean, I think that, you know, one thing that happened with AIDS is it, you know, it really began, you know, it began in the gay community, but then it really spread into the homeless population as well. And really, like, in the New York. New York's black community also. And it was, you know, I think that that kind of. And intravenous drug users. I mean, like, I think that, like, that sort of, kind of other side of the AIDS crisis is sort of overlooked. And we talk about, you know, we talk about this. The caller was talking about, you know, sort of pink people on the streets with. I mean, I think that it was, you know, it was, you know, kind of in your face in New York. It was very front and center, and yet there was, you know, in many, like, a real kind of callousness towards it. I think, in particular, because it was largely affecting more marginal communities.
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A
Let's talk about Benjamin Ward, New York City's first black police commissioner. What was Ward facing at the time?
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C
He had a very difficult job. He was. I mean, he's an amazing, amazing figure who's kind of been largely forgotten. And I will say I got very lucky because I. I was going through his papers, and in his papers was an unpublished memoir that he had written. So it was. Yeah, it was like. It was an amazing kind of trove of information, really, and really kind of a candid accounting of what it was like to be the police commissioner of New York during these years. And, you know, he came into office with you know, hopes of. At the time, you know, there was a terrible problem with, like, racist policing at that point, just like, terrible police violence toward the black community. And it was something he wanted. Wanted to address, but he pretty quickly found himself just like, with a fire hose of crises in particular. Crack. I mean, so. And so he's, you know, he's. He has limited resources and he's facing this. This massive drug epidemic which was spike in crime and. And, you know, kind of over taxing the criminal justice system. So. So he was really just kind of barely barely able to keep his head above water.
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A
Let's talk to Eddie from Milford. Hey, Eddie, thank you so much for making the time to call all of it.
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D
Hi, Alison. You can hear me?
- [28:16]
A
Yeah, I hear you.
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D
Great, great. Hi. Yeah, those years were so special. Some said that they were terrifying, but they were also joyous. I got to New York in 1984 at 22 years old to be an actor, and, you know, the AIDS crisis hit. I'm gay. I was in Charles Bush's vampire Lesbians of Sodom for a year, off Broadway in 1987, which was just absolutely joyous, except at the same time, you know, friends were getting sick and dying, including a fellow cast member the next year. I tested HIV positive in 1988 and gave up the acting. It was too much, you know, with everything happening in the homophobia. And I decided to go to law school. And in 1990, I started law school after joining ACT UP because I wanted to be a civil rights attorney and a human rights attorney. And here I am, 37 years later, still alive, still HIV positive, had quite a wonderful life. I also was at the Tompkins Square park riots. I live in the East Village and obviously was part of the East Village art scene working with Charles Bush. So I'm really excited to read the book.
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C
Yeah, you lived it.
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A
He did live it. The riots in Tompkins Square.
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C
Yeah.
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A
What started it? How did it end?
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C
Yeah, what started it was really that you had a lot of people, you had a large homeless population living in Tompkins Square. But in a way, that wasn't really the core of the problem. The core of the problem was that it was where a lot of people would just kind of gather and hang out and make noise and drink and do drugs. And for many years, that had not been an issue because the Lower east side and the East Village were pretty deserted. But what happened in the 80s is that neighborhood starts to get gentrified and the yuppies start moving in, and people started complaining about the noise. And so the police decide that they are going to impose a curfew, and they show up at Tompkins Square to impose this curfew on at midnight on a Saturday night. And they had, you know, there had been a warning. And so, you know, local. Local people knew local Activists, local radicals knew, and they came, you know, ready to. Ready to protest and ready to get into it with the cops. And that's what happened. And. And the park and the whole neighborhood around it turned into a crazy kind of riot scene with. With, I mean, literally cops on horseback chasing, you know, protesters around the neighborhood. And, you know, there was. Lots of people were injured, lots of cops were also injured. And, you know, it became a huge scandal, and it really became a police scandal because it became clear that the police, you know, were far more violent than was appropriate. And, you know, Benjamin Ward we were talking about before commissioned a report that kind of laid all this bare, that where. Where he, you know, really pretty courageously accused his own police department of. Of.
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B
Of.
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C
Of real brutality. Of course, you know, there were very few. Almost no one was prosecuted, but. But at least they were. You know, they were. That there was a statement was made. And. And then, you know, Koch backed off because. Backed off the closing of the parks because he didn't want to. You know, he didn't want. This was. This was a political nightmare for him, of course. And then he kind of left it alone for a little while. And then. And then later, Dinkins ultimately closed down Tompkins Square park to renovate it. And so it was closed for a while. You know, some people probably remember this. And it was rebuilt, and that really kind of changed. By that point, the neighborhood had changed, a lot of families had moved in, and the park from then on really became more of just a kind of a normal park for families and for local residents. But before that time, it had been a real kind of gathering place for, you know, you know, for punks, for anarchists, for radicals. You know, it was like. It was kind of a stew of people.
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A
Got a bunch of texts. I'm gonna try to get to a bunch of them. Black folks did not love Koch. No rebirth for them, they said. I worked as an artist for the New York daily news from 89 to 1999. It was a turbulent but exciting to be part of the famous headlines and breaking news. This text says, I waited tables at Katz's Deli from 89 to 93 and played four rock and roll gigs at a local bar. You could still SM and make a living as a musician. It was possible because live music in New York City Night Live was happening. You talk about so many people in this book. Al Sharpton, you talk about Spike Lee, you talk about all of the cases. You talk about Trump. So people are gonna have to read your book to find out more but when you think about the city today, when you walk out today, what do you see as the biggest influence that can be traced back to the years of 86 to 90?
- [33:26]
C
Yeah, I mean really the entire city, I mean this is the city we are living in, was the city that was born in those years. I mean, I think that, you know, it was still, it was still being transformed. We were talking about Tompkins Square, very good example. You could see that the neighborhood was starting to gentrify and that's what caused this, this crazy kind of collision of sort of social forces in Tompkins Square and in the surrounding neighborhood. But, but the writing was already on the wall, right? People were already moving into the neighborhood. You know, that old, old kind of tenements were, were, were getting renovated. The, the, the whole kind of character of the neighborhood was, was changing. So, you know, I think that, that, that, that same process would ultimately kind of spread all across the city.
- [34:17]
A
Justification.
- [34:18]
C
Exactly. And into the boroughs. Obviously. You know, I live in Brooklyn and you know, we have seen it all, all, all across Brooklyn as well. But that really all, all of that, you know, almost like, you know, like, like Domino's just started. That process started in the 80s with this, you know, with this quote, unquote rebirth. And it just spread across the city and has been spreading across the city ever since then.
- [34:41]
A
Sort of spreading. Unwieldy.
- [34:45]
C
Yes.
- [34:45]
A
As some would say.
- [34:46]
C
Yes. I mean, I think we're, you know, we won't get into the current political moment in New York, but I mean, I think what we're seeing in this Merrill race is, is very much a direct reaction to this, to what started in 1980s New York and has been going on really ever since then.
- [35:01]
A
The book is called the Gods of New Egotists, Idealists, Opportunists and the Birth of the Modern City, 1986-1990. It is by Jonathan Mahler. You should read the book. Thank you so much for coming in.
- [35:14]
C
My pleasure. I'm Ira Flato, host of Science Friday. For over 30 years, our team has been reporting high quality news about science, technology and medicine. News you won't get anywhere else. And now that political news is 24 7, our audience is turning to us to know about the really important stuff in their lives. Cancer, climate change, genetic engineering, childhood diseases. Our sponsors know the value of science and health news. For more sponsorship information, visit sponsorship.wnyc.org.