Brutal New York: A Picture Essay of Poverty and Crime in NYC from 1965-95

[John Wayne]

Pretty moving stuff, to say the least.

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=402544

I have to admit, I teared up at certain points.

[danzig]

The remarkable thing though is how things have changed, compare Harlem in those pics from 60s and 70s today...its like night and day. Sadly those images of 60s/70s/early 80s of NY still leave people with the stereotype that NYC is crime ridden.

[Nikos]

Pretty good photo essay, but I found it slightly racist that the author blamed whites and "The System" for basically everything.

[Nevins]

Pretty good photo essay, but I found it slightly racist that the author blamed whites and "The System" for basically everything.

He is apparently European, so that would explain the racist lens.

Many things I can understand about white racism, but to this day it is for me an absolute mystery why we whites are moving away from everything we have built up and come to love just because a black - or in Europe a Muslim - family moves into the neighborhood

Does he seriously not understand white flight, or is he just using this as another tool to advance his whole "everything is whitey's fault"?

Usually I would be with criminals for days before photographing them. In order to survive among them it was a deadly necessity that I always had faith in their inner goodness, directing myself toward the human being inside and away from the role the system normally forced them to model their lives on.

On such occasions I began to understand the brutal but all-too-human re-actions of the police. Their racist attitudes and lack of understanding of the reactions bred by our outside oppression is one of the reasons for the angry charges of police brutality. Society has trained the police to expect the worst instead of communicating with the good in people. Therefore they shoot before they question.

Yeah I think he's just an idiot.

[s.rwitt]

No kidding. It's not white people's fault Nicky Barnes and Frank Lucas decided to flood Harlem with heroin.

[John Wayne]

Perhaps, but they certainly weren't doing much of anything to help fix the situation either.

[Nevins]

Perhaps, but they certainly weren't doing much of anything to help fix the situation either.

The outside cannot take sole responsibility for changing impoverished areas such as the Bronx, a great deal of that has to come from the communities themselves. Another great quote:

Everywhere we entrench ourselves against the oppressed. In New York, steel bars shot up over windows at the same speed that steel shrapnel had been spewed at poor Vietnamese.

This guy is such a stereotype it almost leaves me at a loss for words.

[Ramashan]

Back in the 20's through to the 50's Harlem was a hot spot and the place the musicians and high society went to for the night life. It was still all black at the time, the only thing that has changed was the influx of drugs which leads to crime. I spent four weeks living and working in Harlem in the mid 90's, I had police asking me if I was crazy for being there at night, alone, directing traffic on 1256th St and Malcolm X Blvd. and our location was right next to a proverbial crack house with police activity running through it every day. But I also met some of the most sincere and friendly people during that job. Its all about how you approach people. And I also had my truck stopped in the middle of the street by 5 people who simply refused to let my drive because I was a white boy on their street. I just sat there till they were satisfied and moved then drove away. Racism can cut both ways. "Whites don't come here to invest because they're racists." "What are whites doing here? This is our community, your not welcome."

But how is this any different than any other ghetto or inner city minority center in any other city? Detroit? Los Angeles? San Antonio? Richmond?

Although a great photo journal, the camera can be bias because we only see what the photographer wants us to see to back up their ideology. Was Harlem bad in the 70's and 80's, you betcha, NY got its bad rap during that era, nearly every Burrough had its problems. But times change. And as a poster said, sometimes communities also need to look inward to see what role they are playing in the problems surrounding them.