The 1980s were a very challenging time for New York City, the town became a very dangerous city because of a cocaine and crack epidemic. By walking the streets of New York City after dusk, you were putting your life in danger. Walking the streets you could encounter a homeless person looking for money, drug addict looking for his next fix or a gang member looking for you wallet. This led up to crack vials in the streets and a spike in crime rate. Times were changing in New York City including the political figures right as the new decade began. As the city was going through changes, I will explain the financial, political and social changes that were affecting New York City for the better and for the worse. Also, I will compare these times to the times portrayed in New Jack City.
New York City was going through financial changes that were impacting
the city negatively. Planned shrinkage was a idea that was created by
Roger Starr and it caused the poor neighborhoods to rot, while the
rich neighborhoods became even better. The average rent in The Bronx
was $195 a month, compared to Manhattan’s $239 a month. Queens had a
average rent of $237, where Staten Island had rent that was $229 a
month. Finally, Brooklyn had a median rent value of $198 a month.
This shows that the richer neighborhoods had a higher rent average
then the neighborhood that were going through changes. In the 1980s
the median average of income was $21,350 for a average family living
in New York City. The prices today are much different then it was
back in the late 1980s. For instance, the cost of a new home was
$149,800, a first-class stamp was $0.25, the cost of a gallon of
regular gas was $1.16, the cost of a dozen eggs was $1.00 and finally
the cost of a gallon of Milk was $2.78.
The social trends in New Jack City compared heavily to the trends
that ,were bursting onto the scene in New York City in the late 1980s.
Hip-Hop was the fresh music that was being played in the clubs and on
boom-boxes across New York City parks. This wave of music led to the
many changes in the clothing styles. For instance, most people that
got caught up in the hip-hop craze started to wear very big and baggy
clothing. To go along with giant gold chains and jewelry. Also, the
mobile telephone of the times were extremely big and had a long
antenna and people used to carry them with them. If you were into
hip-hop and wore the clothing, you would find yourself on a basketball
court with your crew. Basketball was always a popular sport but it
was its peak in the late 1980s. Although, these changes were good it
wasn’t close to the other changes that affected New York City
negatively. Unfortunately, one of the biggest changes in the social
trends in New York City were drugs and gangs. Crack became the
hottest drug on the street and the gangs started to sell it. This led
to a lot of violence on the streets of New York. Drugs, gangs and
violence were all apart of New York City and it’s due to the changes
to the city politically.
“"The city came through a huge economic and cultural binge in the
'80s," said Felix Rohatyn, the Lazard Freres investment banker who was
the chief architect of New York's financial rescue a decade
earlier”(The New Yorker). “The Bonfire of the Vanities' was truly
written in New York. The embers are still glowing, but the fires are
certainly banked." In 1980, when Democrats squeezed into Madison
Square Garden, New York was poised on the springboard of tremendous
growth. Delegates heard [Jimmy Carter] accept his party's nomination
for a second term and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy acknowledge defeat. Mayor
Edward I. Koch was at the height of his popularity and was beginning
to dream about running for governor(The New York Times). The
lieutenant governor, who would later defeat Koch in a primary, was
barely known beyond Queens.” These statements show the political
times of New York City in the 1980s. The changes since 1980, from the
terrible effects of AIDS, homelessness and crack to the remarkable
boons that have come with new immigration, the rebuilding of
burned-out neighborhoods and the improbable improvement of the
subways, will alter the visits of convention goers in ways incidental
and profound”(The New York Times)
New Jack City was based in New York City in 1989 and the movie is
about a gang, Cash Money Brothers, and its leader Nino Brown. Soon
after they start getting into the drug business, they begin making a
million a week. After the cops catch wind of the business that this
gang is doing, they send out Scotty and Nick to go undercover. Scotty
is a cop who is looking to get inside the gang so he can take them
down. When he is trying to get in the gang, his attempt fails
miserably. Scotty wants to get revenge for Nino killing his mother no
matter what it takes. There are many people that aren't undercover
cops that still want to take Nino down themselves. This compares to
life in New York City in the late 1980s and early 1990’s. New York
City had a rise in drugs and gang violence in that time period. As
well, as the rise in undercover cops going undercover to bust these
gangs wide open. New York City was still a very scary place at night
in these areas. The movie is filmed in New York City, so the actually
scenes really show how New York was in that time. The scenes that were
filmed at night showed a very gloomy city. The characters in the movie
show how the gangs were back in that time and how scary New York was.
The movie shows the typical good cop and bad gangs feud but it changes
when the cop become revengeful. People were scared to live in a poor
neighborhood in the late 1980s. They show how cops and gang members
acted with each other, some good cops and some dirty cops. Overall, I
believe that New York City was depicted perfectly in the movie because
of the rise in drugs and gang violence. It was safe to walk the
streets of New York at night and still isn't to this day. Gang
violence has been lower in today’s world compared to what it was back
in the late 1980s. “First-time director Mario Van Peebles - a TV
actor who also plays the movie's top cop - focuses his camera
primarily on Nino and his impeccably well- dressed gang. And, in doing
so, he camps up their scenes needlessly with bright, primary colors
and skewed camera angles, kind of like the old BatmanTV show. Of the
latter, [Wesley Snipes] is the stand-out, a Spike Lee veteran who
comes across like Arsenio's evil twin brother. Ultra-cool rapper Ice
T, who did the themes for both Colors and New Jack City, has a more
understated impact as his opposite number, a dreadlocked cop”(Rob
Salem, Toronto Star).
After watching New Jack City and doing research of the times it
became very clear to me that the movie is very realistic to New York
City in the late 1980s. The 1980s led to rise of crack, cocaine, drug
dealers, and gang violence. The ending of the movie has a statement
that says: “Although this is a fictional story, there are Nino Browns
in every major city in America. If we don’t confront the problem
realistically -- with empty slogans and promises -- then drugs will
continue to destroy our county.” This statement hold true because it
was written at the time where crime rate was very high in New York and
it was becoming a very unsafe to live. Nino Brown compares to all
gang leaders of today because of the fear he puts into the Citizens of
New York City. His character is very realistic because of the
ruthless heart he has and he will kill anyone who tries to bring him
down. New York City was changing for the worse because some of the
neighborhoods started to become poorer and poorer. This was easier
for drug dealers to take control of the neighborhoods and create
gangs. New Jack City was completely realistic to New York in every
way from the social trends that were bursting on the scene, the
political messages that were sent and even the way that the working
class was represented.
The characters in New Jack City all adapted to the social trends that
were happening in the city at the time. The characters in the movie
would all play basketball while listening to the hip-hop music. They
all wore the big and baggy clothing, along with heavy gold jewelry.
They would also all go to clubs and dance to the hip-hip music. Some
of the characters in the movie would be apart of gangs and drugs.
The working class citizens were depicted as the police officers that
were trying to take the gangs down. They all adapted to the trends
that New York City was adapted to. The lower class were shown as the
people living in the city that the drug lords took over. The gangs
treated the, as peons and they feed them. This movie compared the
life in New York City very well because they really resembled the way
the lives of New Yorkers lived. Nothing about the trends were
farfetched between the comparisons.
The financial and political times in New York City combined heavily
because of how the were connected two connected. In New Jack City,
these times were shown exactly how it was in New York City. The
working class was actually shown, only in a few scenes. The Movie
mainly surrounded the lower class citizens. They all lived in heavily
dirty and poor areas because of the amount of drugs and gangs that
lived in the neighborhood. The gangs would feed the poor citizens
because the gangs would act as the upper class citizens and tried to
control the neighborhood. At the time in New York City, one of the
gang members says “ The rich get richer and the poor don’t get a
fucking thing”. This shows how the richer neighborhoods always got
built up as the poor neighborhood became worse and worse. This was
the effect of Roger Starr’s idea of Planned Shrinkage and it was a
epidemic among New York City residents.
In conclusion, when movies try to compare to the actual lives in New
York City, they usually tend to go overboard and show too much. In
New Jack City, the comparison was on point and they showed the
citizens of New York City living just as they did in the late 1980s.
From the changes in the economy to the change in politics, as well as
the new social changes that were bursting on the scene, New Jack City
made each and every one of those as realistic as can be. From
hip-hop, to chains, to basketball, and then to drugs, this was all
becoming popular on the streets of New York. If someone had no idea
what New York City was like in the late 1980s, they could watch New
Jack City and get a feel of what certain areas were like. Gang
violence is still a problem that the city has to fix and it is not
farfetched as it is shown in the movie. As dangerous as the streets
looking in New Jack City, it was just as dangerous as the streets of
New York City in the late 1980s.
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Decade Older, Has a Great Many New Wrinkles." The New York Times 12
June 1992. Print.
"Per Capita Personal Income by State." Infoplease: Encyclopedia,
Almanac, Atlas, Biographies, Dictionary, Thesaurus. Free Online
Reference, Research & Homework Help. — Infoplease.com. Web.
"$alaries in the City." New York Magazine. Web.
Goldman, John J. "New York Comeback Has Come and Gone Convention:." 11
July 1992. Print
"1990s Flashback-Economy / Prices ." 1990s Flashback 1990 - 1999. Web
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