Masters of the Universe

The subways will still smell like a mix of despair, anger, and urine.

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There’s been no shortage of disgruntled commentary in conservative media about the state of New York City recently, but it’s important to remember how bad things used to be in comparison. Today, Jonah is joined by old friends Tevi Troy and Vincent Cannato to reflect on what the Big Apple was like in the ‘70s. They dig into urban politics, criminology, and what it takes to reverse social decay, while also providing a few nostalgic musings that could serve as the foundation for an Odd Couple reboot. Just as Rodgers and Hart intended, they’ll have Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island too.

Show Notes:

–Tevi’s webpage

–Vin’s webpage

–Broken windows theory, again

–The Remnant with criminologist Shawn Bushway

–The Remnant on Portland’s decline with Nancy Rommelmann

–Tevi’s Intellectuals and the American Presidency

–Tevi: “The Odd Couple Metric”

–The Remnant with Matt Continetti on The Right

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Comments (10)
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  1. Hcspesemba

    Have you ever considered which generation was running the country in the 1970s? The Greatest Generation was in charge of business and government in the 1970s. Their early careers were affected by World War II and the end of their careers was affected by the malaise of the 1970s.

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  2. Cbailey348

    This was fabulous!

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    Ben Connelly

    This was so good!

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    6Million$Jonah

    One of the many bionic improvements that Oscar Goldman made was upgrading $6 million Jonah’s pronunciation matrix. Archipelago. We don’t emphasize the penultimate syllable like in Latin words. We emphasize the antepenult. Seriously, do Vin and Tevy give you “the business” for this kind of thing, or do they just let it slide? Gen X should be self-policing, but maybe their cahmpasses are off. With love, 6MJ

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  5. P Satter

    There actually have been some slow, positive changes in Portland, but it will take years to get it back to the city it was.

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  6. _jen

    We had a primary yesterday, and 7 of the 9 Seattle City Council positions were up for a vote. Of those 7, only 3 incumbents were running for re-election. As of now all 3 incumbents are not only passing to the general, they have received the most votes _including_ the council member for Downtown Seattle.
    So ... that signal a city's voters send when they want things to be different? We are decidedly not sending it. I'm "shaking my head" as the kids say. I don't even know who could look at the last 3 years here and say "yeah, I'll order more of the same please".

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  7. Richard Kennedy

    So, the GOP is again, borrowing the Dem model on, uh, “policy” by going to the activists and K Street for ideas. Dems accused the GOP of this all along. It would seem that the activists have at least gotten hold of Heritage. Oh, and I hear a lot more from Heritage Action than Heritage anymore.

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  8. Grykearney

    I watched The Taking of Pelham, 123 the other day. Not a great movie and the acting was a bit over the top. What stuck out for me for was the main characters making casual racist comments to each other. Walter Matthau refers to a group of visiting Japanese dignitaries as “monkeys” in their presence and this is played as a joke because unbeknownst to him, the visitors understand English. Slight embarrassment ensues. Clearly a different time.

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      Stomaino

      I think no movie more encapsulates 70s NYC than that movie. Interesting note, the character of “Fat” Caz Dolowicz, who gets gunned down by the bad guys for cussing them out, is played by an actor named Tom Pedi, towards the end of a long career playing character roles. At the beginning of his career, he was in 1948’s Naked City, playing one of the detectives looking for a murderer. That movie was filmed on the streets of NYC and is a perfect picture of that era in the city’s history. Interesting bookends to his career!

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    CynthiaW

    Looking forward to it. Tevi Troy is a favorite.

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