You know, because of the lack of budget, we had to find neighborhoods where time had stopped - kind of stuck in the '50s. And no place had that better than Staten Island.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Those who remember New York in the 1970s, as I do, look back on a city that had hit a very rough patch - decaying, bankrupt, and crime-ridden. But fun.
As an old-time New Yorker, it's not that I miss the '70s and '80s or whatever. I miss the fact that there was a certain kind of energy that exists when people can live for nothing.
In the early '90s, New York was a pretty depressing place.
Well the thing is that the New York of 1846 to 1862 was very different from downtown New York now. Really nothing from that period still exists in New York.
In other words, New York has gone all suburban and bourgeois on us.
Neighborhoods change. In some ways, it's part of the beauty of New York City. It's in a constant state of flux.
Surprisingly, Manhattan casts a sort of undersized shadow onto Long Island. Where I grew up, everyone seemed totally disconnected from the city - ours could have been any suburb, anywhere - though when traffic was thin, it took us only half an hour to get into midtown.
What I'll remember about New York is growing up really fast.
One knew in advance that life in New York would not be easy, but there were cheap rents in cold-water lofts without heat, and the excitement of being here made up for those hardships. I didn't move to New York to make a fortune.
When I came to America, there was a lot of decadence in New York in the early '70s because the city was bankrupt and you could do whatever you want!