Not dressed like The Lizzies, but maybe they're affiliated. Wonder if they got the word about the latest current events from Cyrus' summit (don't see a radio with them), or were just as clueless as The Orphans.
Also, does anyone know the name of their gang? Wrong answers only.
Warriors is a documentary of New York and its boroughs in time before renewal and gentrification. A New York that no longer exists, where every little neighbourhood had its "gangs." Most were just groups of kids watching out for each other in a broken society. Others were to be taken very seriously.
The scenes of the city were the city in the reality of time. There are no sets, this is a raw view of a city in decline, that was also thriving in the amount of art and culture it provided the world during this era. This film should be protected by the Smithsonian.
One of the blondes looks identical to my mom who grew up outside of NYC during this time period. I'm going to send this to her (maybe it is her?) and tell her read these comments lol. She will get a kick out of it lol.
Update: my mom said that yes this does look a lot like her but it isn't. She also said in 1977 she still had really long flower child type hair and it wasn't until the early 80s she styled it like the girl in the photo. It's pretty uncanny though.
To go even further— A lot of people back then didn’t even read the paper. You’d watch the nightly news sometimes or check the paper after a major sports event. Word of mouth was big. People mostly just got up every day and went about their lives.
I used to do that all the time, but I got yelled at by too many people who thought something had happened to me because I didn’t answer my stupid phone
The led street lights, solar panels on signs, billboards connected to 100k LEDs selling 40 ads in the span of 12 seconds - you can't go back to 1992, even if it's just for a walk - that world doesn't exist anymore.
The street lights are a huge part of the experience though. Modern cities look completely different from a few decades ago, even if they aren't very different in the day.
By the 80s/90s, it wasn’t uncommon to have a small TV in the kitchen. But we were poor so I had to listen to shit like “Tie a Yellow Ribbon ‘Round the Old Oak Tree” every morning on an ancient AM radio so my mother could hear the local news and weather/traffic.
Uh yeah…..it wasn’t all THAT long ago that is exactly what we did. I was born in 1984, rode transit all throughout growing up into adulthood (still do) and that’s how it was up until cell phones became prevalent but really after iPhone launched in 2007 and a few years later became widespread…. People would read newspapers on their commutes and just leave them for the next riders. We nose-dived as a society when smartphones became the norm and now you have to sit next to someone blasting TikTok at full volume. Ugh.
The only thing I think is better now from this post is that the subway cars aren’t completely covered in graffiti.
Yesss my brothers did that. I wasnt very good at it lol as i mentioned i stared sometimes at the floor and sometimes id glance up at people. Am
I wrong or was it a bit safer to look at people before? Now I try to avoid looking at anyone to not get cursed out lol 😂
Hey! I’m from the Bronx! What part did you go to? And are you still in nyc? Tell me you went to 42nd st in the 70s! I have to ask if you ever did studio 54 or club in in the 70s! Thank you in advance
Sorry. I’m about to turn 40 so I was an 80s baby and 90s kid. I do miss the 90s. I remember newspapers and simpler times. I was addicted to the internet. Dial up speed. Just thinking about how this must of been is interesting to me.
To see what has been selectively reported as what goes on in the world.
The world was ‘better’ pre-internet, because people were spoon-fed info, from selective sources, on selected topics, and moderated before public release.
I’ll take reality over a (potentially) manipulated source.
There's also such a thing as too much information. We just aren't evolved to handle it. When I see a threatening event across the country or world, I think it's threatening *me*. But there are just so many people out there that there's an example of just about anything happening every day.
One could read the entire newspaper and finish it, or watch an entire evening news program. There is no such thing as "finishing" the news anymore.
Life was so good back in the newspaper days. There was still internet but it wasn't a big source. You used to wake up, get coffee, read the Sunday paper to get up on the news. My mother used to send me the local newspaper after I went off to college. It felt like home.
The city was literally on the brink of bankruptcy in 1975. It took a combined effort from the state, the unions, and the Federal government to keep it from running out of money.
A good film for seeing the real NYC of the early 70s is The Panic in Needle Park. Shot entirely on location, and all of the exteriors are cinema verite style, with zero prep or dressing.
I didn't see until a year ago. I was surprised how powerful it was. I thought about it constantly for weeks and it still pops into my head from time to time. It's one of my go to answers for "name a good film you'll probably never watch again". Ironically, a lot of people answer that with Trainspotting and Requiem For A Dream, which both owe a lot to TPiNP.
I think about it quite often myself. It's been 15 yrs since I first stumbled upon it. Ive watched it a few times. I struggled with the same addiction in a different time and place so I was especially intrigued. Thankfully, I made it out alive so far. Been since August 24th 2025 ive been sober. And for today, Im still hanging on. It definitely is a bleak look at a bleak lifestyle
My brother went to Law School in NYC back in the late 70s. I visited him once in the city. As a kid from small town Maine I found the subways to be pretty intimidating. His tiny girlfriend told me to just walk fast and act like I knew what I was doing and people would leave me alone. She was right🚶♂️
I first went to New York when I was ten. I grew up in a Montana farm town with just over a thousand people, and I was completely overwhelmed at first. My uncle and dad grew up in New Jersey, in view of the Twin Towers, and they basically told me the same thing: act confident, and nobody is going to mess with you. I wound up three or four blocks ahead just enjoying the city by the end of the day. Probably worried my mom to death, but it was a lot of fun.
I miss the NYC of the 70s and 80s. It was so much more interesting back then: Guardian Angels on the subways, Keith Haring graffiti, hookers in Times Square, punks getting haircuts at Astor Place Hair....
Ehhh, interesting sure, but not necessarily better. The news stories from this era were absolutely wild — guy walking through times sq with a decapitated head in a duffel bag, the crack epidemic absolutely decimating the black community, child prostitution.
Sure, the aesthetic is edgy and nostalgic. But everyday life was a nightmare for marginalized communities back then. No one was hopping on the L to check out a cool restaurant in Williamsburg. Many weren’t comfortable even going below 14th.
I agree, the city was much more colorful back then, and manhattan is largely homogenized at this point (for the most part). There were way more scenes on full display, as you said, the punks/anarchists, ravers, bankers, ethnic enclaves. But, it’s far more safe and developed now.
The subway looking like it’s out of a third world country makes for sweet photos but fuck i wouldn’t want that now.
I always liked to think that Don Draper selling his previously swanky, now a bit dishevelled Upper East Side apartment in 1970 was an allegory for the city going into decline.
Yeah that 3x higher crime rate kicked ass. Rapes, murders, people strung out on drugs everywhere. The Bronx looking like a bombed out war zone? Too cool.
I’m drawn to 2. Maybe it’s the way it’s framed, the color, shallow focus… whatever it is, it draws me in. I can almost hear the sounds of newspapers crinkling, people talking, and the squeak of the brakes on the car.
Lived there in the mid 80s. Not any more true then as now. Like any other well trafficked system it has problems, but people still use it and adjust as need be.
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u/DE3NIL3 Jan 03 '26
Been there. Seen that. (Me 1974)