Blog 20: Final Version of Major Research Essay

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.



GOTTLIEB, MARTIN. "THE 1992 CAMPAIGN: Then and Now; New York City, a
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

Blog 19: Reflection on Archives Essay

To start off, I never knew what the LaGuardia Archives was and I never knew how much interesting items they had there. Working with them allowed me to find enough information on “planned shrinkage” to write my essay. I never heard of Roger Starr or “planned shrinkage” before this paper and after reading the interview with him, I got a good sense of who Roger Starr was and what his ideas were. The archives allowed me to get a good idea of what “planned shrinkage” actually was. After the interview with Roger Starr, I learned mostly everything I needed to know about the idea, with a little more research I completely learned everything I needed to know about it, and I was able to work on my project from day one. That interview with Roger Starr was the introduction to the archives room for me and it started me off right for my paper. Also, the items that the instructor showed us gave the class a good representation of how the archives worked and why the archives are useful for doing research on anything that revolves around New York City. I found the archives project essay more difficult to write compared to the major research essay, because I couldn’t find a large amount of information on Roger Starr and his idea of planned shrinkage. Although, the paper was shorter than the research essay it still lacked the information that would’ve helped me write a longer paper. I would also blame myself for not doing a hardcore amount of research and if I did I believe that I could have found a lot more information for the essay. Overall, the paper allowed me to become more acquainted with the LaGuardia Archives room and now I found a good place to collect my information for future project instead of just looking up the information on the internet.

Blog 18: Report on major research paper

While researching for New Jack City, I found it difficult to find information on the financial and political aspects of the last 1980s in New York City. The social trends were easy to find because growing up the same trends were still going on. Going to the library I couldn't find any books that had exact data. Looking up news articles was the best way that I found information. The internet also gave me the best data but I was limited but I limited the search because I didn't want to have my main sources from the web. Class discussions help me out a lot with topic sentences, introductions and conclusions, downshifting, and sentence variety because of the way that I `would make every sentence a run-on sentence. The class helped me out making my introduction and conclusions more direct instead of rambling on. Overall, I found enough information from articles instead of just getting my information straight from the internet.

Blog 17: Minority Report, Oedipus, and free will

Free will is just an illusion to some person because they don’t believe that they are able to be free and do whatever they want. In the article “Free Will and Determinism in the World of Minority Report”, having free will is thought to require two things: alternate possibilities and self-control. The idea of free will could cause threat to free will. In the movie John Anderson was told he was going to kill Leo Crow. John still ends up holding up a gun to him debating to kill him or not. Even though he knew he was going to kill him, he still chose to be in the position to kill him. He had the chance to not kill him and he still put his freedom in danger. This shows that you can both be safe with free will and still have your freedom in danger. Even though they can stop you from committing the crime, you cannot be completely free. Oedipus deals with the same issue of free will because he is trying to find out who he is. Little did Oedipus know, he fate was already set for him because of mainly his pride and stubbornness. He defeated the Sphinx with the puzzles and ended up marrying his mother. It is hard to believe in both fate and free will because if you fate is already set then what is the point of free will.

Blog 16: Report on New Jack City

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.

Blog 15: Minority Report response

Minority Report is a movie that really challenges the idea of freedom and safety in society and which one should be top priority. I believe that society should worry about security above all because I rather know I’m safe even if it affects my freedom. In class we talked about the Patriot Act and I am 100% on board with it because I have nothing to hide and if it is going to keep me safe then that is fine with me. Especially in the world we live in today, safety should top priority because of how much fear we live in. After 9/11 the whole world changed and our freedom took a hit because of the threat of more attacks on our country. Reading our e-mails and listening to our phone conversations does sound extremely but if you have nothing to hide then why should one worry. If it is going possibly save lives then I agree with the policy. I understand how someone would argue that the price of security is too high because freedom is the basis of our country. However, this is a scary place right now and freedom should take a back seat right now if it benefits the country. Minority Report goes to the extreme to show the differences in safety and freedom. The retina scans and invading spiders can compare to the way that the government tap our phones and e-mails. The government is only listening for a “trigger” word and as long as you don’t say or write one of those words then your freedom is still there. In a very sensitive world, even joking about bombs or terrorists will get you in trouble. I agree with this because there is a point where a joke goes too far and will trigger the government to look into it. The idea that you can live in a world with complete freedom with or without the Patriot Act is just ridiculous. In the article “Free Will and Determinism in the World of Minority Report”, having free will is thought to require two things: alternate possibilities and self-control. The idea of free will could cause threat to free will. In the movie John Anderson was told he was going to kill Leo Crow. John still ends up holding up a gun to him debating to kill him or not. Even though he knew he was going to kill him, he still chose to be in the position to kill him. He had the chance to not kill him and he still put his freedom in danger. This shows that you can be safe with free will and still have your freedom in danger.

Research Essay

New York City in the 1970s was known as one of the most dangerous cities in America because of the rise of crime. The 1970s brought a new wave of excitement to the city with nightclubs and the rise in drugs in certain areas. This areas became outcasts to the nicer cities. These areas started to become worse and worse due to the idea that Roger Starr came up with. This plan was called “planned shrinkage” and it caused major problems for New York. This plan was very controversial and Roger was just as controversial. This plan basically stole money from the poor and gave it to the rich, a real anti-robin hood act. As more neighborhoods turned rotten, the crime level would rise. This almost ruined New York City’s reputation forever. The economy in the 1970s did not help the families that were affected by the “planned shrinkage” in the New York. By doing research from the Archives in LaGuardia, I found some interesting information about planned shrinkage and Roger Starr. I will explain what “planned shrinkage” is who Roger Starr is and how it almost ruined New York City forever.
“Planned shrinkage is a public policy, practiced most notably in the 1970s in New York City, of withdrawing essential city services (such as police patrols, garbage removal, street repairs, and fire services) from neighborhoods suffering from urban decay, crime, and poverty so that neighborhoods may be claimed by outside interests for new development. After the mid-20th-century boom in highways, suburbs, and urban dispersal, civic leaders felt that urban decline was a natural and inevitable process, and they sought to plan the manner in which cities would shrink in such a way that population loss would be greatest in the areas with the poorest non-white residents.” This policy was not accepted at all by society and the social outlook was grim. There was huge public outcry because of the people that were dying because of this. This was unnecessary deaths that were happening because they wanted to save money. This is what tainted New York City’s reputation and people started to think that we were evil people and tourists would be afraid to come over here.
On the economy side of “planned shrinkage“ actually is a little bit brighter because it actually helped the city create better cities but t the loss of people lives. This plan was used to clean up the areas that were dirty and that had high crime rate. This was used to get the minorities out of the cities and to get more “rich white” people in. It’s all about the money and this did get them a lot of money and helped other cities adapt the policy but they project was too big for New York City.
Roger Starr, an outspoken thinker on urban affairs who blended a lifetime of intellectual analysis with hands-on public service and whose often provocative vision of his native New York City influenced public policy debates for decades. He was one person that was not afraid to speak his mind and had no problem causing controversy. Aside from controversial, his beliefs were very passionate and he tired to help the economy as much as possible, no matter what it did to the people of New York.
In conclusion, no matter how controversial Roger Starr was, nothing was worse than his idea ”planned shrinkage”. I believe that this could’ve destroyed New York City forever. Making people move from place to place because of the way they lived in just wrong. I understand that it could help the economy a little bit but that is too big of a risk to take. If you want to make a new neighborhood, reducing the amount of police, EMT, and firefighters isn’t the solution. That will only cause more mayhem to the city. Crime would skyrocket in those areas and people will end of getting hurt. This plan cannot be justified no matter how much money can be saved by using this. Over time you might be able to reduce the amount of bad neighborhoods there are but that will only cause that others to get worse. People might say that it was appropriate for the time and I can agree with that statement on some terms. Because eventually it got New York back on stable ground New York City is not as dangerous as it used to be but the change in new York culture also played a big role in the clean-up. “Planned shrinkage” would not be able to work in today’s world because of how much New York is growing and the diversity is everywhere now. This will cut back on the amount of bad neighborhoods without any idea of planned shrinkage.