Jonathan Mahler: The Tabloids That Made The City That Made the Country

Summary

The Gist – October 15, 2025

Guest: Jonathan Mahler
Episode: "Jonathan Mahler: The Tabloids That Made The City That Made the Country"
Host: Mike Pesca

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Overview

In this episode, Mike Pesca welcomes Jonathan Mahler, journalist and author of The Gods of New York: Egotists, Idealists, Opportunists and the Birth of the Modern City, 1986-1990. Together, they examine the late 1980s transformation of New York City, focusing on the chaotic interplay between media, politics, race, and urban rebirth. The conversation delves into how sensationalist tabloids shaped public life and created outsized personalities like Al Sharpton, Donald Trump, and Rudy Giuliani, and looks at the enduring legacy of that era in America today.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Do the Right Thing: Spike Lee and the Summer of '89

[09:55–12:11]

• Spike Lee as a Symbol of the Era:

  • Mahler describes Lee as an “egotist, idealist, and opportunist,” encompassing the full spectrum of characteristics he documents in his book.

  • Do the Right Thing stands as the cultural centerpiece for depicting race, class, and gentrification in late 1980s NYC.

    "It's amazing because it's like a timeless film that deals with all these universal themes...but it's so specific to this particular moment in the life of New York as well, as you say, 1989."
    —Jonathan Mahler [10:33]

• Direct Inspirations from Real Events:

  • The murder of Yusef Hawkins and other racially charged killings directly influenced Lee and Mahler’s interpretation of the era.
  • Film includes references to real-life incidents, like the Michael Stewart case and the spectacle around Sal’s Pizzeria mirroring events in Howard Beach.

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Racial Flashpoints & Activism

[12:12–18:56]

• Yusef Hawkins, Bensonhurst, and Howard Beach:

  • Hawkins’ murder (August 1989) was a flashpoint ahead of David Dinkins’ historic mayoral win.

  • Sharpton led protests into hostile neighborhoods, highlighting extreme racial tensions and media-driven narratives.

    "After the murder, Al Sharpton...led a busload of black protesters into Bensonhurst right after Yusuf's murder. And there were just the neighborhood kind of residents gathered and were just shouting the most vile things at them."
    —Jonathan Mahler [15:46]

• Sharpton’s Self-Reflection:

  • Mahler discusses Sharpton's evolution, acknowledging recklessness and youthful zeal while stopping short of repudiating key controversies like the Tawana Brawley case.

    "He talks about that as being the moment where he kind of realized that, you know, it was time for him to grow up."
    —Jonathan Mahler [17:17]

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The Tabloid-Made Personas: Sharpton, Trump, Giuliani

[19:00–23:10]

• Tabloid Ecosystem as Incubator:

  • Sharpton and Trump understood the symbiotic relationship between norm-breaking behavior and media attention.

  • The tabloids rewarded outrageousness—turning activists, prosecutors, and business people into national names.

    "Trump and Sharpton are kind of two sides of the same coin. I mean, they both saw that they could capture the public's attention...by saying and doing outrageous things that got them into the tabloids."
    —Jonathan Mahler [20:05]

• Norm-Breaking Becomes the New Normal:

  • Giuliani and Koch, too, used the media for attention, upending traditional roles of politicians and prosecutors.

    "All these lines that people assumed were...could not be crossed...it was all these uncrossable lines were suddenly getting crossed. These norms that seemed like they were kind of holding our culture and society in place. We're all getting broken. And it was kind of fine."
    —Jonathan Mahler [22:10]

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Ed Koch and Urban Rebirth

[23:43–29:38]

• Koch as Mascot and Manager:

  • Koch presided over NYC’s economic rebound, aligning with Reagan-era neoliberalism and incentivizing private development.

  • Pesca and Mahler debate Koch’s legacy—whether he saved or wounded the city by spurring gentrification at the cost of affordable housing.

    "He presided over the economic rebirth of New York, but he also was, was himself just kind of a mascot for the city."
    —Jonathan Mahler [24:25]

• The Price of Development:

  • Aggressive development replaced SROs (“flop houses”) with luxury units, fueling both fiscal recovery and rising homelessness.

    "It did drive up tax revenues for the city, but it also sent a lot of people in the streets and decreased the amount of affordable housing..."
    —Jonathan Mahler [28:39]

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The Rise of Homelessness

[31:42–34:02]

• A New Phenomenon:

  • Homelessness became a fixture in 1980s NYC, driven by vanishing cheap housing, deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill, and shrinking manufacturing jobs.

    "It was a product of...the destruction of...this cheap housing. It was a product of deinstitutionalization, and that was a nationwide phenomenon..."
    —Jonathan Mahler [32:15]

• Misguided Reforms:

  • Closing mental health institutions, seen as progressive at the time, left vulnerable populations without support.

    "There was an idea that these people would be released to these kind of community centers...and they just kind of never appeared. So there was nowhere for these people to go."
    —Jonathan Mahler [33:35]

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Tabloids as City Shapers

[34:02–38:19]

• Tabloid Wars:

  • Tabloids like the New York Post (post-Murdoch) and Daily News dominated public conversation, fueling and amplifying sensational stories.

  • Establishment media like the New York Times tried to position itself as a high-minded counterweight but also indulged in the tabloid celebrity machinery.

    "These tabloids really just dominated the conversation in New York...They're both, you know, kind of what was on the, what was on the COVID The Wood, as it was known, was like always the story of the day."
    —Jonathan Mahler [36:15]

• Shared Reality:

  • Despite their distorting effects, tabloids created a shared (if sometimes warped) citywide narrative.

    "So let you know, New York felt like...both like the center of the world and also kind of like a small town."
    —Jonathan Mahler [37:46]

• The New York Times’ Complicity:

  • The Times “held itself above the tabloids, but not entirely” and contributed to Trump’s celebrity.

    "No wonder Donald Trump has such a huge ego. I don’t think anyone has ever been featured on the COVID of a New York Times section as many times in a single year."
    —Mahler citing NYT internal memo [39:29]

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Race, Crime, and Polarizing Stories

[41:45–44:14]

• Crime Coverage as Social Catalysis:

  • Stories like the Bernhard Goetz subway shooting and Central Park Jogger case weren’t just about the incidents—they played out as cultural and racial battlegrounds, with the tabloids driving the polarization.

    "The tabloids turned Bernie Goetz into a folk hero...and then you would have a reaction, a backlash to the event itself that would inevitably just further polarize the city."
    —Jonathan Mahler [43:36]

• Differences in Modern Era:

  • Today’s media fragmentation makes it harder for a single narrative to dominate or for incidents to have the same sociopolitical impact.

    "Everyone’s attention is flying in a million different directions now ... you could amplify a story in the tabloids...and everyone in New York would be talking about it. That was it."
    —Jonathan Mahler [41:45]

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Crime in the City: Then vs. Now

[45:49–49:15]

• 1990s NYC was Incomparably Dangerous:

  • Crime rates (especially murder) were astronomically higher than today, which heightened underlying social anxieties and shaped political demands.

  • The crack epidemic added to the volatility and lawlessness.

    "When people talk about how dangerous New York is now, it's like, it's a joke. I mean, it's just nothing compared to what it was like then..."
    —Jonathan Mahler [46:00]

• Central Park Jogger: A Complicated Narrative:

  • Acknowledges that, separate from the wrongful convictions, there was real and serious violence in the park that night.

  • The facts were complicated, but the tabloids shaped the initial perception.

    "There's no question that that was going on that night...a group of kids were out in the park beating people up...that was kind of what New York was like during these years."
    —Jonathan Mahler [47:54]

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Giuliani, Dinkins, and the Crime Drop

[48:36–52:39]

• Did Giuliani Deserve Credit?

  • Crime rates already began falling before Giuliani took office, largely linked to the end of the crack epidemic, but his administration capitalized on and accelerated safer city trends with new policing strategies.

    "I think partial credit, you know, I think that crime was already by, you know, by the time he gets elected in 1990, crime is already like at its peaks...I think he was able to kind of like take that momentum and build on it..."
    —Jonathan Mahler [49:15]

• Dinkins’ Challenges:

  • Pesca and Mahler agree Dinkins faced near-impossible headwinds: entrenched violence, economic crisis, and high-stakes racial crises like Crown Heights.

    "He was dealt a very difficult hand. Like running the city during those years was close to impossible..."
    —Jonathan Mahler [51:11]

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Notable Quotes

• "Tabloid-driven: that's really the key to the period, and to understanding why we still talk about these people."
  —Mike Pesca [20:05]

• "Norm-breaking... has now become basically the theme of our political life. That’s exactly what was going on then."
  —Jonathan Mahler [22:10]

• "He was the most important figure in New York during these years because he did preside over New York's rebirth. He kind of lifted New York up after... urban blight."
  —Jonathan Mahler on Ed Koch [24:25]

• “The tabloids turned Bernie Goetz into a folk hero...and then you would have a reaction, a backlash...that would inevitably just further polarize the city.”
  —Jonathan Mahler [43:36]

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Memorable Moments & Timestamps

• Spike Lee as Era Symbol – [10:33]
• Sharpton’s Recklessness and Growth – [17:17]
• Outrageousness as Path to Influence (Sharpton & Trump) – [20:05]
• Koch as Economic Rescuer and Mascot – [24:25]
• Homelessness as a New Urban Trauma – [32:15]
• Tabloids' Narrative Control – [36:15]
• Media Monoculture vs. Today's Fragmentation – [41:45]
• True scale of crime in 1980s NYC – [46:00]
• Central Park Jogger complexities – [47:54]
• Giuliani and Dinkins—credit and blame – [49:15–51:11]

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Tone and Style

The dialogue is sharp, historically rich, and wry, with both Pesca and Mahler maintaining a lively, critical, and at times sardonic tone. They keep the conversation engaging, blending media criticism, cultural analysis, and political reflection with a clear, conversational style.

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Conclusion

Pesca and Mahler present a vivid picture of the crucible that was late-1980s New York: a city transformed by violence, activism, and above all, by a media environment that built—and destroyed—public figures with equal ferocity. Their discussion connects the past to the present, illuminating how media-driven personalities and tabloid logic have migrated from urban sensation to national narrative. Jonathan Mahler’s The Gods of New York serves as both a cautionary and explanatory account of the city that made the country.

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Recommended for anyone interested in media history, urban politics, race, and the making of modern celebrity and crisis culture.

Transcript

[Mike Pesca]

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[Jonathan Mahler]

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[Mike Pesca]

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[Jonathan Mahler]

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[Mike Pesca]

It's Wednesday, October 15, 2025 from Peach Fish Productions, it's the gist. I'm Mike Pesca. How to read diplomatic reporting Trying to figure out how this Hamas deal, this Israel Hamas hostage deal went down. New York Times today Actual paper wasn't an actual paper wouldn't sound like this. Ultimately the two sides more or less split the difference. Arab officials said Israel would hold on to much more territory than Hamas wanted it to, but it would pull out of many built up areas. Hamas grudgingly accepted the compromise, meaning Hamas. Hamas gleefully accepted the compromise. Does grudging acceptance characterize anything that you know about Hamas? Later on in the story there is this quote from Steve Witkoff which gets exactly at the main question I've been having, which is why would Hamas give up the hostages? That was the only leverage they had. But Witkoff is saying they were almost looking at the hostages less as an asset and more as as a liability. So allowing for the fact that wit cough might be exaggerating or misreading things or just lying to us in the press for some reason, it's beginning to be clear that the hostages were not this shit, this trump card, no pun intended, this shield. They were in fact, a magnet. Which gets us a little further down in questioning the idea that this was a genocide. The intention of Israel was a genocide. This gets us to reexamine that precept, because if it was a genocide, what would the stated claim of getting the hostages, how would that play into their real aim, which was a genocide? And remember, in order to find something a genocide, it has to be the only inference that a reasonable person can draw from the actions of one of the combatants. But no, everything that we've been seeing adds up to the fact that Israel's stated reasons for the war, to get back the hostages and to kill Hamas, were in fact the real reasons for the war. And we're also seeing from the actual results of the negotiation that Hamas was saying to themselves, wait a minute, I think of those two actual aims of the war, I think that Israel would put the hostages first. So in order to save their own lives. Because Hamas definitely believed in Israel's stated goals for the war, not what the international community imputed as Israel's aims for the war. Hamas believed it was to get the hostages and to kill Hamas. Hamas bargained away the hostages in order to save themselves. That would be a fair reading of international reporting. I do not know. In fact, I will say I do not think this piece will last or flourish. It might not last a month, it might not last a couple of weeks. It's a much better situation than we were in a week ago. And in what I'm trying to do, which is dig deep and figure out why this deal was made and what it means, I was listening to many experts, and one was the great Aviv Rite Gurney, and he pointed out that the only leverage Hamas has is through the bodies of others. And so sometimes it's the hostages and sometimes it's their fellow citizen. But as he says, Hamas's only weapon is to make Gaza bleed. Which leads me to think, this can't be a lasting peace if Hamas still has guns and still has because of their bargaining away the hostages, and they still have at least some lives left to sacrifice, which their action show, if they can help, it, won't be their own on the show today. What a book. What an author. So excited. Jonathan Mahler is here. He's the author of Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx is Burning. I feel like I have to say that, like Howard Cosell, where the quote comes from, but this is the new book, couple years later. It's not about the depths of the 70s. It's about the rebirth of the 80s, a rebirth we as Americans are living in now because it was all about Sharpton and Trump and Koch and all these characters from New York who are now traipsing across the national stage and in our consciousness. The name of the book is the Gods of New York. Egotists, Idealists, Opportunists and the Birth of The Modern City, 1986-1990. Jonathan Mahler, up next. You know, Utah, Florida, they recently banned fluoride in the drinking water. We did a segment with Sadie Dingfelder on it. It's, it's a live issue. Let's just say it's unsettled science right now. I wouldn't bring you a product that I thought was in any way safe or going to get in the way of health of you and your family. Cove Pure gives you the freedom to choose Pure Water, a countertop water purifier certified to remove up to 99% of impurities. I will tell you this about COVID Pure. If it's on the counter, you think about all these things. Maybe you worry, maybe you don't. 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Every piece is tested on job sites with trade pros. So when conditions change, you're still ready. I enjoy and wear, maybe wear a little too often. Two things that aren't job sites, but casual events and get compliments on it. My True Work pants. A lot of pockets, a lot of resiliency. I also have several True Work T shirts. And a True Work hoodie goes right over the hood. It fits my face and it's a lovely green flavor that looks a little like maybe something Kermit the Frog might wear if he was backing off his True frog. Like nature, but at the same time being repellent terrain. That's what my assumption of frogs is. I wear True Work. And I'm calling upon you to get to know True Work too. Upgrade your day with workwear built like it matters. Get 15% off your first order@True Work.com with code the Gist. So spelling's important here. Follow along. T R U E w e r k.com use the code the gist. 1989. The number sound of not just a funky summer, but the jumping off point for a municipal, but also national, cultural, and I think maybe psychological history of a place that became, I don't know, the. Not surprisingly, that became the launching pad for how we live now. The place is New York City. It almost always is. And the name of the new book about the period from the 80s to the 90s, with every chapter just being a different year. The name of the book is the Gods of New York, subtitled the Egotist Idealist, Opportunists and the Birth of the Modern City, 1986-1990. Jonathan Mahler, author of Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx is Burning, joins us now. Hey, welcome to the gist.

[Jonathan Mahler]

Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

[Mike Pesca]

So I do quote Public Enemy. I love that first opening line and shot to do the right thing. And I'm glad that one of the. Well, would you put Spike Lee in there as an egotist, an idealist, or what?

[Jonathan Mahler]

I would say he's all the above. Yes.

[Mike Pesca]

Most of your great characters are. They have at least some of all of it. No one is shrinking.

[Jonathan Mahler]

Some are lacking the idealism, but. Yeah, but I would like has it all. Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

So why Spike? Why Spike important. He's a touchstone. You could kind of look at him as he looked at New York and glean some of the. Some of the things you're chronicling. Some of your thesis is reflected back in the work of Spike.

[Jonathan Mahler]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, really, it's do the Right Thing is. Is. Is of course, the kind of the centerpiece. I mean, I, you know, write a lot about Spike himself, but it's really it's really because of do the Right Thing, which was a movie that just was directly about this moment. It's amazing. It's amazing because it's like a timeless film that deals with all these universal themes like race and class and gentrification, et cetera. But it's so specific to this particular moment in the life of New York as well, as you say, 1989. And that song, of course, is the kind of the anthem, the theme song, the song of the summer of 1989. You could hear it everywhere. So for me, you know, Spike was someone who was like, really at the time. You know, now he's become kind of a bit of a caricature. Right. But. But, you know, then he was, like, kind of the coolest guy in America.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Jonathan Mahler]

And he was like a young black guy living in Fort Greene making these independent films. I mean, this was a studio film, but, like, it was. You know, it had the feel of an independent film. And he insisted on keeping the ending, even though the studio didn't want him to. He was making the art he wanted to make, and it was very political. And so, you know, for me, it was just a. It was. And the filming of it, in fact, which, you know, he shot it on a block in Bed Stuy. He literally had to clear out the crack houses on the block before they started filming. It was so kind of of this moment in the life of the city that it was kind of irresistible.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. And the inspiration could have been a few things, but it was most recently the murder of Yusef Hawkins, which was. Which was in a string. This wasn't the first time this had happened. But every once in a while, a mob of white people would descend upon a black person in their neighborhood. The neighborhood this time was Howard Beach. And there'd be essentially, execution. That's how your book starts.

[Jonathan Mahler]

Yeah. Yeah, that's right. I mean, and, you know, much of the film, as anyone who's. Who's seen it, will remember that it revolves around Sal's Pizzeria, while the attack in Howard beach took place outside of the New Park Pizzeria in Howard Beach. So, you know, it was directly inspired by Howard Beach. And, you know, and then there are other illusions throughout the movie to other kind of racial incidents that kind of, most famously maybe the choking of Radio Raheem at the end of the movie with the cop who. With the chokehold was a reference to Michael Stewart, the young black art student at Pratt, who was probably killed in the police chokehold, though no one was ever convicted of any crime in that case. So Spike was really speaking to what was going on in New York.

[Mike Pesca]

A scene plays out in front of a graffiti wall with the words, Tawana told the truth. So there's. And we'll get to that.

[Jonathan Mahler]

Must go.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, yeah. And the thing about the. Tell us a little bit about the. I called it execution of Yusef Hawkins. And it's also important to know that there were precedents, there were antecedents, there were subsequent such killings. But that one is very New York, very much a flashpoint. Go ahead.

[Jonathan Mahler]

Yeah. So, I mean, this young black teenager just recently graduated from high school, Yusuf Hawkins was. Had gone with a couple of his friends to Bensonhurst. Kind of all white Italian neighborhood, sort of famous, made famous by Saturday Night Fever. And he's going to look at a used car and a group of white kids kind of start chasing them through the streets. They get cornered. They think, they think they're just going to, you know, get beat up, basically. And one of the white kids pulls a gun out of his pocket and his belt and shoots Yusuf Hawkins and murders him just in cold blood. So, you know, this happened In August of 1989, right in the kind of justice as the mayoral race was kind of reaching, reaching its kind of climax just a few weeks before the primary and the city had its first David Dinkins, who was running to be New York's first black mayor. So this, after years of kind of building racial tension, other racial incidents, the use of murder just became just kind of the ultimate flashpoint and really a moment where at least some New Yorkers felt like it was time for some healing. I mean, that sort of, you know, probably explains how Dinkins got elected in this moment. But it was also, you know, sort of incredibly, after the murder, Al Sharpton, you know, who's a. Who's, you know, another one of my gods in this book who's a, you know, kind of rab. Very different from the Al Sharpton we know today. A real rabble rouser at the time, you know, led a busload of black protesters into Bensonhurst right after Yusuf's murder. And there were just the neighborhood kind of residents gathered and were just shouting the most vile things at them. And it was, you know, it kind of just underscored how ugly and tense the mood in the city had become. And Koch, in fact, you know, said that they shouldn't be protesting.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, think about that. This is a no go area in New York City for the aggrieved family members and community members of a murdered person. Person, don't go there. It's too dangerous for you.

[Jonathan Mahler]

Exactly.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Jonathan Mahler]

And you're just going to make matters worse, you know.

[Mike Pesca]

Right.

[Jonathan Mahler]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

So did you talk to Sharpton for the book?

[Jonathan Mahler]

I did many times.

[Mike Pesca]

Okay. Yeah.

[Jonathan Mahler]

Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

Looking back, would. What was his assessment? I remember clearly what I thought about him then, which is that he was intemperate and that. I mean, I was in high school, but that he was this outsized figure and that even as, as I think I recall it, I remember the. Of Patrick Stewart and Yusef Hawkins. I was, I think, a little too young for a similar death of Willie Turks, who was another one of these killed by mob figures. And I thought those were tragedies and these guys should go to jail. But I thought Al Sharpton was taking advantage of it, was indiscriminate and would take on sort of any cause that had a racial dimension. So sometimes it was a righteous cause and sometimes it was Tawana Brawley, which I believe to be a hoax. I think the courts agree with me on that. But looking back, how does he assess maybe his decision making at the time?

[Jonathan Mahler]

Yeah, I mean, I think he would say that he, first of all, he defends his actions. He puts himself in the kind of tradition of Martin Luther King, which is to say, you know, he says that his whole. The idea was just to get publicity, get attention, draw the public's, you know, raise public awareness, draw the public's attention to what was going on. You know, he. I think he would certainly acknowledge and does acknowledge that he was young and got carried away. He will not say, say that Tawana Brawley was. Was, you know, was never abducted and raped. He would say that. That, you know, I was listening to the lawyers. That's how he sort of defends himself. But, but he does acknowledge that he was young and a little reckless and a little fast and loose and that, you know, he, he. He talks about, you know, and this is. Moves a little bit beyond the purview of my book. I kind of deal with it a bit in the epilogue, you know, after his stab. After he gets stabbed and has a kind experience. You know, he talks about that as being the moment where he kind of realized that, you know, it was time for him to grow up. Yeah. That he had to stop acting, you know, so irresponsibly and, you know, stop. Stop kind of throwing. Throwing fuel on every fire and try to be a little bit more of a responsible kind of civil rights leader.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Jonathan Mahler]

So, you know, I think he acknowledges that he was, you know, A little fast and loose and a little reckless during these years, but. But he certainly doesn't make any apologies. Right?

[Mike Pesca]

He did well when your book starts in his 30s, so he's not that young. And do you know, did he ever pay Stephen Pagonis, the cop who he accused of.

[Jonathan Mahler]

I think someone paid for him.

[Mike Pesca]

Right. So to lay it out there, he was found liable for slandering him. Who was the cop who was said to have abducted Tawana Brawley. And that didn't happen. But the interest among the interesting things are. First, let me acknowledge that when you show yourself to be unbelievably consistent, and I am going to stand by this community no matter what, doubt you, even if maybe some of them turn out to be, I think it was a hoax, the Tawana Brawley thing, you get, you do get credibility among some quarters and people attacking you helps credibility. So I'll say that. But the other thing is the opportunists of your book, it's very crucial to understand that all of these figures are forged in a media environment where, if you tell me. But if Al Sharpton weren't that way, we wouldn't know the name Al Sharpton, right?

[Jonathan Mahler]

No, absolutely. I mean, we wouldn't know the name Donald Trump either.

[Mike Pesca]

These are all the people in your book. It's very much tabloid driven.

[Jonathan Mahler]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. And he recognized that. I mean, and I mean, look, it's this, you know, in a sense, Trump and Sharpton are kind of two sides of the same coin. I mean, they both saw that they could capture the public's attention, they could raise their profile by. By saying and doing outrageous things that got them into the tabloids. And then they were able to kind of create storylines and build those storylines through the Tablo. And you know that they're that Sharpton, you know, both of them. But Sharpton is just a pure product of pure creation of the tabloids in New York in the 1980s. And, you know, it worked. I mean, and as you say, he was. This was also kind of important in the context of Sharpton to recognize that, like, this was a city that there was not a lot black New Yorkers did not feel like they had much of a voice in the affairs of New York. And so, you know, he was, he gave them a voice. And so it's, it's maybe not surprising that he was, even though he was so outrageous, that he was able to kind of build a following in this moment.

[Mike Pesca]

Right. So Sharpton maybe not acting the way that one, an activist civil rights activist would act if they're in the model of the respectability politics of MLK or most of the especially early leaders of sncc. There's one Donald Trump not acting in the way that a millionaire multimillionaire traditionally acted. This was, you know, the. Usually it would be the ruling class. The. What was it? The 300 of New York would never even want their names in the papers. Then you have a prosecutor, Rudy Giuliani, of a very prestigious Southern District of New York firm where you let the law do the talking. But he didn't. He talked himself to the tabloids. Again, not acting the way a prosecutor is supposed to prosecute or act. And you could argue Ed Koch not acting the way a traditional politician acts. And it all works. And it's all because of the tabloids.

[Jonathan Mahler]

That's right. It's all this kind of norm breaking, you know, which is now so become basically the theme of our political life. That's exactly what was going on then. I mean, every, all these lines that, that people assumed were. Could not be crossed. Whether it's. Yeah. Whether it's the, the U.S. attorney issuing a press release and holding a press conference every time he makes a big arrest, which totally unheard of before Giuliani. Or whether it was Donald Trump boasting to the tabloids about his sexual exploits or Tawana Brawley and Sharpton kind of just shamelessly insisting that the story was true even after a grand jury had ruled that it wasn't. It was all these uncrossable lines were suddenly getting crossed. These norms that seemed like they were kind of holding our culture and society in place. We're all getting, getting broken. And it was kind of fine.

[Mike Pesca]

I distinctly remember a Rudy Giuliani, Al d', Amato Senator Alphonse d', Amato Joint press conference where they showed up in army fatigues and showed tape of them and hold. Held up crack vials and said even we can buy crack on the street. And you have a senator and the, and the chief prosecutor of the most prestigious off office decked out in these costumes. I was a kid, I had an occasion to ask Altomato about it as my first like, very tough question to a sitting official. Oh my God, what a clown show.

[Jonathan Mahler]

I know. Totally ridiculous. And it was like, you know, mainly intended to embarrass the D.A. bob Morgenthau.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. Who was one of these old school patrician, do things by the book types. Let's talk about Koch for a second. Is he the most important person not in the period after that would be Trump and Giuliani, but in terms of revitalizing New York. Cuz this book is also the story that picks up the narrative from the Bronx's burning period, the worst part of New York City history. And New York does rebound. So is Koch the most important person in that rebound or was he more riding the fumes of the zeitgeist in the rebound that was happening around him?

[Jonathan Mahler]

So, okay, so I think both, I think he was both the most important figure in New York during these years because he did preside over New York's rebirth. He kind of lifted New York up after the sort of dismal 70s when the era of kind of white flight and urban blight. And not only that, but he was. So he presided over the economic rebirth of New York, but he also was, was himself just kind of a mascot for the city. Right. He was the mayor. He was kind of nationally and internationally known. He had this big kind of public image. He was always kind of out in the streets, how am I doing? And so he was kind of everything New York was. Ed Koch was New York during these years. But at the same time, I mean, he was, he didn't have a lot of options. I mean, he was, you know, New York needed, essentially needed to do something, needed to somehow rebuild its economy, needed to pick itself up after the 70s. And this was, you know, the era of Ronald Reagan, the era of trickle down economics and, you know, tax cuts. And so, you know, he basically signed on to like what we now call somewhat derisively neoliberalism. Right. That he was like, all right, well, private industry is going to save the city. And in a sense it did, but of course it came at a huge cost because so many people were left out of this recovery. So, you know, that really complicates Koch's legacy.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. What were some choices, some policy choices that were tough for him that could have gone either way that you think he made to the benefit of the city?

[Jonathan Mahler]

Yeah, well, I would say, you know, again, this is, this is complicated. It's hard to say ultimately that it was to the benefit of the city, but, but the kind of most significant decision he made, I think, or decisions involved like land use and basically incentivizing development, which both generated enormous sums of money for New York because, you know, there's just drove it, it sort of spurred development and drove up the cost of real estate and drove up taxes and revenues, the tax base. At the same time, it destroyed so much affordable housing. So, you know, that's, that's to me, I mean, all of it is so complicated. But that's a, that's, I think, a good example of something he did that, you know, that, that, that did in many ways kind of save the city, but it also kind of destroyed the city in. That really drove us to this kind of affordability crisis that we're now in.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, but, but I would also say, and you know, this, that that is, with the benefit of hindsight at the time, when we hear developer now, we think of a person who is sitting on a potential pot of gold. And the question for elected officials, if they can extract from some, develop from said developer enough concessions to benefit people other than, say, him and the rich, the developer and the rich. Back then, the city was desperate to develop any properties. They would be thrilled to have any development of areas that now are selling for, you know, millions of millions of dollars. I'm not even talking about the Lower east side. Think about Bryant park, which was just a shooting gallery, which is not, say, violent, but just streamed with heroin users. Right. And so now you have the world's biggest financial institutions pounding each other to get a slice of that park and build up there. But back then, I would imagine any reasonable politician would be desperate to get anyone to build anything.

[Jonathan Mahler]

I mean, that's exactly it. I mean, there was no. It was all tax breaks and zoning waivers. There was no, well, you can build here if you create 25% affordable units. There was none of that.

[Mike Pesca]

What leverage did a politician have that no one wanted to build there?

[Jonathan Mahler]

Right. So it was, yes, you can take. We are going to give you huge tax breaks if you take this sro, this welfare hotel that's filled with poor New Yorkers, and turn it into a luxury apartment building. Yes, we will pay you to do that. And that's what happened. And it did drive up tax revenues for the city, but it also sent a lot of people in the streets and decreased the amount of affordable housing and raised housing prices kind of across the board.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. But you make the case that without these, with these SROs, with these what were derisively called flop houses, but, you know, somewhat accurately, a guy could flop their live there for a night or two nights when they hid in every room. That was a huge factor in forestalling what became the homelessness crisis, which was a new phenomenon. We've always had vagrants and hobos and people who are derisively called bums, but just people who for their life would sleep hard and live on the street. That was unknown.

[Jonathan Mahler]

It was totally new. I mean it's, it's, you know, even, even the term, you know, now, now people, many people prefer the term unhoused. But there was actually a fight to get the media to use the word homeless instead of bums. But it was a, it's, it's, yeah, it's hard to believe now because we, we, you know, the homeless are such a sort of fixture of the cityscape. But, but at the time it was shocking to see people sleeping on the streets.

[Mike Pesca]

And we'll be back in a minute with more of Jonathan Mahler on the gist. The gist is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations.

[Jonathan Mahler]

Morning, Zoe. Got donuts. Jeff Bridges, why are you still living above our garage? Well, I dig the mattress and I want to be in a T mobile commercial like you. Teach me me so Dana. Oh no, I'm not really prepared. I couldn't possibly at t mobile get the new iPhone 17 Pro on them. It's designed to be the most powerful iPhone yet and has the ultimate pro camera system. Wow, impressive. Let me try. T mobile is the best place to get iPhone 17 Pro because they've got the best network. Nice. Jeffrey, you heard them. T mobile is the best place to get the new iPhone 17 Pro on us with eligible traded in any condition. So what are we having for launch? Dude, my work here is done. 24 monthly bill credits on experience beyond for well qualified customers + tax and.

[Mike Pesca]

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[Jonathan Mahler]

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[Mike Pesca]

We'Re back with Jonathan Mahler, author of the Gods of New York. Egotist, Idealist, Opportunists and the birth of the Modern City Homelessness. This was not a New York invention, of course. International cities. Mumbai has so many beggars you go to Los Angeles or if you did in the Great depression there were hundreds of thousands of what we now call homeless. So it wasn't that New York invented homelessness, right? It was just this more pronounced phenomenon in New York, wasn't it?

[Jonathan Mahler]

It was new. Certainly new to America during these years. It was a product of, you know, at least in New York, it was the product of. Of the destruction of. Of this cheap housing. It was a product of deinstitutionalization, and that was a nationwide phenomenon because it was all across the country, hospitals, you know, mental hospitals were releasing, you know, formally, you know, so the mental. The mentally ill who had no place to go. That was a. That was a kind of a national project that sent a lot of people into the streets, not just in New York, but all across the country. And, you know, and also, I think. Yeah, I mean, I think it's also a product of the disappearance of manufacturing jobs and kind of, you know, essentially jobs for people without college degrees, which, you know, which. Which kind of like went. Went. Disappeared with the. You know, with the. During whatever. The deindustrialization, you know.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, yeah. I think a lot of these things were. At the time, we couldn't have known, like, even the. Even the deinstitutionalization was seen as a. A progressive achievement. Right. People saw the movie. People saw One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, and there was this notion that we're caging people and they need to be free, and they.

[Jonathan Mahler]

That's right.

[Mike Pesca]

And it predated Reagan, actually.

[Jonathan Mahler]

Yeah, that's right. And medicating them against their will. I mean, the problem was that there was just, you know, there was an idea that these people would be released to these kind of community centers, kind of, you know, halfway houses, and. But. But that net that was supposed to be this kind of big network of them around the country, and they just kind of never appeared. So. So that. So there was nowhere for these people to go. And, I mean, this is. You know, we're still dealing with this today, the legacy of this.

[Mike Pesca]

So tell me how the different, or tell the audience, because I lived through it. I was talking to a friend who was a paperboy for the New York Post at the time, and he told me, just by reading the Post and forming my own opinions, I thought that there were three terrible humans, that the world would be so much better if they just. He said, retired. But I think I knew what he meant. And he said they were Donald Trump, Al Sharpton, and George Steinbrenner to pull in your last book. But tell me and everyone, the different flavors of the tabloids, what narratives they were propelling and how we saw their definition of the world really played out in the real world.

[Jonathan Mahler]

Yeah, yeah, for sure. So, I mean, really, you know, there were, there were three tabloids at the time. There was the New York Post, the Daily News and Newsday. But really the Daily News and the New York Post were the big ones. And what had happened is about a decade before my book starts, almost exactly a decade before my book starts, Rupert Murdoch bought the New York Post. And at the time when he bought it, the Post had always been a liberal newspaper. Kind of a sleepy liberal newspaper founded by Alexander Hamilton. Exactly. And then he turned it into a kind of a racy right wing tabloid, a kind of a Fleet street style tabloid with sex and crime and a lot of gossip. And the Daily News, you know, kind of had to, had to sort of morph itself to keep up. So, so the Daily News also became kind of more sensational, more gossipy by. And so, you know, by the time my book begins, the two of them are kind of fighting, fighting desperately for readers in New York. And you know, the Post, which had always been the kind of, you know, the also ran the Daily News, had always been the big tabloid. The Post is now kind of catching up to it and they're kind of trying to out sensationalize and out gossip each other. So it's kind of a perfect moment both for sort of self made, self styled people like Al Sharpton or like Donald Trump to turn themself, turn themselves into celebrities. And it's a perfect moment to just, you know, to say and do outrageous things because you know these tabloids are going to gravitate to you immediately. The last thing I was going to say is, and you know, it's like, it's, this is, you know, just to like remember this moment in time. And this is like really before the rise of not just the Internet, but even of cable news. So these tabloids really just dominated the conversation in New York. They defined the conversation in New York. They're both, you know, kind of what was on the, what was on the COVID The Wood, as it was known, was like always the story of the day. The columnists, you know, Jimmy Breslin, Marie Kempton, Pete Hamill, so many others who would write, you know, three days a week and four days a week and everyone would read them. And so we're so far removed from this moment in time now, but that it's almost kind of hard to relate to. But at this, you know, during these years, everyone was reading the same news sources, everyone was following the same storylines. And you know, and in a sense these tabloids were incredibly polarizing because that's what polarized what, what tabloids are designed to do to. To turn the world into heroes and villains, but they were also kind of a, like, paradoxically, like a force of unity because everyone was reading the same stories. So. So, like, you know, New York felt like a. Like a. Both like the center of the world and also kind of like a small town.

[Mike Pesca]

Right, right. And also there was, you know, a shared. Maybe I was going to say a shared reality. There was so much distortion in the press that maybe it was a shared unreality, but at least people were working off the same script now at the time.

[Jonathan Mahler]

It is a shared reaction. I mean, if you think like, of someone like Bernie Getz, say. Right. Like, you know, there was not a. Like, there's. There's some disagreement about exactly what he said to those kids before he. What they said to him and how they approached him and. Yeah, and, you know, but. But, you know, it's the same. It's the same story for the most part that everyone kind of could agree on.

[Mike Pesca]

Right. So at the time, there was this other newspaper in town with actually a bigger circulation. You're probably familiar with it, the New York Times. How'd they look at themselves, the referee, above it all? Because I read a lot of their coverage then, and it wasn't always above it. All the park five Central park jogger stories were certainly not above it all. But what was the New York Times doing? And weren't they pretty powerful?

[Jonathan Mahler]

Yeah, they were. And, you know, and particularly because, you know, now the New York Times, where, where I work is, is. Is really a kind of an international product, an international newspaper. At the time, it was, you know, it was a national paper, but it. It had a much more robust, like, identity as, As a New York institution. It really covered New York aggressively as well. And so, you know, yeah, it was. It was, you know, I think in many ways it kind of held itself above the tabloids, but not entirely. I mean, it was covering these stories, too. And, you know, in large part because it's what people wanted to read. And so, you know, it was there. And I mean, you take like, someone like Donald Trump. I mean, this is a great example. I was, during my research, I went through Abe Rosenthal's papers. He was the editor of the New York. To the executive editor of the New York Times during these years. And I found this amazing note in there that had been written to him by a staff member. And it said something like, this was in, I think, 1987. No wonder Donald Trump has such a huge ego. I don't Think anyone has ever been featured on the COVID of a New York Times section as many times in a single year? And you know the Times.

[Mike Pesca]

Now, to be fair to the Times, they're not the ones who ran the headline from Marla Maple's Best sex I Ever had headline top of the paper. So that tells you why he always likes the tabloids.

[Jonathan Mahler]

But they did compare him to Rupert, to Robert Redford. Sure, they did describe him as looking like Robert Redford.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, you know, he had that blonde hair. Maybe it was naturally blonde then. So I was thinking of this. I listened to you talking to JC has been king on his podcast and you were struggling to come up with a story that in any way parallels the strength of some of the stories back then. And you said that maybe the Daniel Penny story could hold a candle to the stories that will pop up every six months. But I was thinking of a dog that didn't bark. It's a little insulting to call it that. You remember the 18 year old Columbia student Tessa Majors who was murdered in 2019? Right, right. At One Morningside Park. Do you remember that?

[Jonathan Mahler]

Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

So that wasn't not covered. And I'm sure the tabloids, I haven't gone back, I'm sure it was a front page story, but it did not break through. There was certainly no rush for mob vengeance. This story, I think was covered as tragic. But even the victims who were young black kids were also afforded some measure of sympathy. And in fact, I didn't even know this until I look back. Do you remember this a couple years later? 2021, December, pretty much the same. It was the same park, similar spot in the park. Another Columbia student, a graduate student, was killed. And I don't even remember that now. So contrast that with the period you're talking about.

[Jonathan Mahler]

Yeah, I mean, to me this is, you know, like the biggest difference is it's a media story really. I mean, I think that we are. Everyone is. Everyone's attention is flying in a million different directions now, you know, whereas as I was saying before, I mean, these, you could amplify a story in the tabloids, you know, and to some extent in the New York Times too. And everyone in New York would be talking about it. That was it, that was all it took. I mean, the decision to put a story on, to make the story the wood, to put it on the COVID of a tabloid was basically the decision to give New York that. This was what New York was going to be talking about at the very least for the next 24 hours. But if it got some traction for a whole lot longer. So to me, it's in large part a media story, but I think also because of all of these kind of racial incidents, all this racial violence, there was, you know, during these years, during the 80s, there was such kind of heightened sensitivity toward these stories. There was such a sense of, like, you know, everyone was just kind of waiting for the next one to happen, and each one would. Would in itself become such a kind of a polarizing incident that. That it would, like, you know, I mean, again, like, Bernie Goetz is a good example of this. Right? So. So, like, for Bernie Goetz, it was. That was something that a lot of angry white New Yorkers seized on and turned him into a folk hero. And that then created, of course, a backlash among other New Yorkers and particularly in the black community, which was like, jesus Christ, how are these people celebrating this guy shooting five black kids on the subway? So the reaction to these incidents itself, these incidents would get projected by the tabloids. And the tabloids turned Bernie Goetz into a folk hero, you know, the death wish gunman, they called him immediately. And then you would have a reaction, a backlash to the event itself that would inevitably just further polarize the city. And then it would happen with the verdicts, too. Like when Bernie Getz was basically acquitted of all his. Of everything, you had a lot of people kind of celebrating. And then again, in the black community, you had this sense of, how is this possible? How is this. This justice?

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. And I think the Bernie Getz thing was they defined him before anyone knew he was who he was. His mug shot was on the COVID There was a national manhunt. And then when it was discovered who he was and we got video of him, there was a little backing off of him as a hero because he came across as such a. I will use the word squirrelly individual, and I use that advisedly. Yeah, yeah. But still, there was the narrative to hold to. And I think the Post emphasized the vigilante aspect. I think maybe the Daily News emphasized this guy's a weirdo aspect. But it was all playing out, and it was all very fraught. Now, into this, we have one other major factor, and you don't shy away from it, but I think it's very, very important. And that is crime was. You hear the phrase out of control. But man was New York City unsafe during these years. The blas. During the de Blasio years, there were 300, less than 300 murders some years in New York. And I give a lot of credit To Bloomberg. But it was de Blasio who presided over the safest, least murderous years in New York back then. In the years you're talking about, murders peaked over 2,000. It's almost unimaginable. And then they stated over 2,000 for a year, and they went down a little bit. So I also think that people. It's very hard to really understand why people were at maybe such a knife's edge, except they were literally so often at a knife's edge.

[Jonathan Mahler]

That's a really good point. I mean, there was, like, crime. We are so, so far from. From those. Those numbers now in every way. Not. Not just murders, but just all kinds of violent crime.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Jonathan Mahler]

So when people talk about how dangerous New York is now, it's like, it's a joke. I mean, it's just nothing compared to what it was like then, you know, and in that mix, you also had crack, you know, which was. Which was like a total accelerant for crime during these years, too. So, yeah, I mean, it's. You know, and then you can really, if you want, you can just kind of broaden the whole crime theme out, because it's not just these violent crimes. It's financial crime. It's political corruption. You know, this was like a. Like a dirty, dirty time.

[Mike Pesca]

Right, Right. So I would say that Bernie Getz, though a vigilante and should have been found guilty of more serious crimes at that first trial, was speaking to a frustration, not even in a way that was much less legitimate than what Daniel Penny was doing. So many people had the experience of young toughs approaching them on the subway. And people would routinely have the real wallet in the face, fake wallet. And the fake wallet is what you handed over the mugger. And this would happen really often. And when people protested, and they literally protested, and there were, as your book documents, groups of whites and blacks yelling at each other, their aggrieved injustice. And so it would be Howard beach against Central park, the Central park jogger. But maybe what people forget now, because when we think of Central. Central park, we think of the exonerated Central park five. That night was a night of. The word they used then was wilding, but it was a night of marauding in the park. People were, you know, white bicyclists were attacked and concussed and put in the hospital. And I think even more serious might not have been these guys, but, yeah, that was really going on.

[Jonathan Mahler]

Might have been these guys.

[Mike Pesca]

I didn't want to say. But not for sure. And not for the. Not for the Sexual assault? Yeah.

[Jonathan Mahler]

No, no, no. But it's an uncomfortable, it's like an uncomfortable truth about it Was, was, yeah, this, was that, that, you know, this, there's, that, there's, there's no question that that was going on that night, that, that a group of, of kids were, were out in the park beating people up and you know that that was going on and that's, you know, that was kind of what New York was like during these years.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, sometimes I read the coverage and they look back and 10 at the word wilding because you know, obviously you don't want to connote, you don't want to have those connotations and equate humans to animals. But they were just marauding in the park, picking on random people and putting them in the hospitals. Seriously?

[Jonathan Mahler]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you know, I tried to be as kind of straightforward about that as I could be in the book. Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

So then you have the Rudy Giuliani thing. Such an interesting character. I'm talking to you now. I don't want to give away my presiding precise location, but within a stone's throw, if I have a really good arm of the house that he grew up in, he. To all his discredit and to everything he became and to the tabloid creature he was, how much real credit should be given to him for instituting compstat crime fighting methods that at least strongly correlated and I would argue caused a lot of the downtick in crime?

[Jonathan Mahler]

Yeah, I mean I think partial credit, you know, I think that crime was already by, you know, by the time he gets elected in 1990, you know, three crime is already like its peaks. I think it peaks in 90 or 91 and it's already started its descent. I mean this was the end of like the crack epidemic which had really, really driven crime up in these late 80s was, was finally starting to wane in the early 90s. So I think he was able to kind of like take that momentum and build on it for sure. But I, you know, it was, it was like the turn I think had already started to happen when he, when he was final. Timely elective.

[Mike Pesca]

That's true. But to be very fair, we really couldn't have known it then. This is another thing in retrospect. So there is, I have the stats in front of me. 22, 45 murders in 1990, 21, 54. Then it goes just under 2000. So in 93 when he's elected, 1946. Now this is going down and it keeps going down, but we couldn't know it would keep going down and it's still unacceptably high. And there have been past years when it seemed like murder was going down and then it came up again. So the logic of this city is way too murderous. I'm going to do something about it. My rival, David Dinkins, who is, was New York's first black mayor, has not. And it does bother me sometimes when people talk about the injustice of Dinkins not being elected with the phrase crime was all already going down. I would, I would say not enough. And we couldn't have known how much.

[Jonathan Mahler]

I think that's totally legitimate. I don't disagree with that at all.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, but then again, what Giuliani became, it's very hard to offer a defense of Giuliani in 2025.

[Jonathan Mahler]

And I think that, I don't know, I mean Dinkins, I think is, he was, he had, he was, he was dealt a very difficult hand. Like running, running the city during those years was, you know, was, was like close to impossible, I don't think. I think he, you know, obviously he completely botched the, the Crown Heights situation. That was a complete disaster. He was terrible with the police in general. I mean the police were very difficult to deal with then.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, I'll quickly, I'll quickly just tell people Crown Height situation was in a three car motorcade. First one a police car, middle car, a very important rabbi. And then the third car goes through. They said a yellow light, could have been a red light. Kills a kid named, a 7 year old kid named Gavin Cato. He's Guyanese. The black people of Crown Heights are extremely upset. They find a Jewish person, a young kid named Yankel Rosenbaum, who's an Australian studying in Crown Heights and it's a riot. The riot is on. They kill Rosenbaum, they. Someone does Limerick, Nelson in fact.

[Jonathan Mahler]

And then there's, you know, days of rioting where, where Dinkins doesn't even show up in Crown Heights. He's hoping it's just going to go away.

[Mike Pesca]

Right.

[Jonathan Mahler]

You know, finally he finally he goes, you know, I think on the third day and you know, and he, he was, he, he really.

[Mike Pesca]

Blizzards, blackouts, riots, you got to show up. This is like the one rule of mayor.

[Jonathan Mahler]

Exactly, exactly. Yeah. But I also feel like he's, you know, he, he, he, it was a, it was a tough four years, so.

[Mike Pesca]

Indeed. And then, and then the big issue came. Did he go to the US Open and divert planes over it? That, you know, more people voted against him for that than some of the other things you're talking about.

[Jonathan Mahler]

Well, that's the, that's, that's New York politics.

[Mike Pesca]

Such a good book. The name of the book is the Gods of New York. Egotists, Idealists, Opportunists and the Birth of the Modern City, 1986-1990. Jonathan Mahler, thank you.

[Jonathan Mahler]

Thanks for having me.

[Mike Pesca]

And that's it for today's show. Corey wars, the producer of the Gist. Ashley Khan does our coordination of production, which is one way to say it. Jeff Craig runs our socials. Kathleen Sykes helps me with the gist list. Michelle Pesca helps. More than helps, really orchestrates it all from above. Pulling the string, sort of a Svengalian robes. When she wears a robe, a bathrobe, sometimes it's white, it's not black. And thanks for listening. Marketing is hard, but I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be.

[Jonathan Mahler]

Let me point something out.

[Mike Pesca]

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