What was the best decade to live in New York City?

Why would you skip the depression for fucks sake???

Late 70's, early 80's. NYC was a total shithole, which while making it somewhat dangerous also made it affordable, which in turn made it a mecca for smart and creative kids dissatisfied with life in what we now call flyover country because cheap rent meant they could afford to live there.

Also, it's where I met my husband, so I admit to some slight bias.

The 1930's included the World's Fair.

5th Ave 1930s. Love how clean and elegant it was.

I don't know but I used to visit a friend who lived there in 1970 or 71, I can't exactly remember which, they were mostly the same. It was filthy but laid back, not a bad experience.

R1 A third of New Yorkers unemployed, factories shut down, breadlines everywhere…It wasn’t all shit, but are you really going to say it’s a contender for best decade?

I think Fran Liebowitz's formative years (young adult) was the time: entire 1970s.

Gucci, Pucci... Fiorucci.

Giuliani was mayor from 1994 to 2001.

[quote]A third of New Yorkers unemployed, factories shut down, breadlines everywhere…It wasn’t all shit, but are you really going to say it’s a contender for best decade?

And yet that decade gave NYC Rockefeller Center, the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, The Waldorf Astoria, the Worlds Fair. It was a very vibrant time in NYC.

I'm thinking music and art. Some of it got popular in the 80s but the Ramones, Patti Smith, Television, Blondie, Talking Heads at CBGBs in the 70s is legend. Studio 54: 1977-1980. Paradise Garage: 1977-1987. Danceteria: 1979-1986. The (2nd) Peppermint Lounge 1980-1985 "Some of the regular featured acts were the Cramps, X, the Raybeats, the Go-Gos, Duran Duran, Marshall Crenshaw, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Big Country, Billy Idol, Afrika Bambaataa, the Bangles, the Waitresses and Joan Jett." The 80s downtown art scene, also legend. Things didn't end great for Basquiat and Haring and Warhol too. When you're a creative young person in the city, the shadows of these people and places loom large. People like Basquiat are spoken of so reverently.

I pick 1975-1985. Even though the early AIDS years were a nightmare for many?

R10 I lived in Manhattan 1975-1983. In the thick of it. What a wonderful time, I look back on it with great nostalgia.

This isn’t an honest question about New York.

It’s more of an examination of demographics.

R13 What does that mean?

I chose the 1970s on instinct and I see others have voted for 70s as well.

It's the economic democracy - everyone could find a place and survive - and the modernity and freedom - womens lib, gay lib, the drugs. I'd say runner up might be the 60s.

[Quote] It wasn’t all shit, but are you really going to say it’s a contender for best decade?

It’s not just a contender.

[quote]I chose the 1970s on instinct and I see others have voted for 70s as well.

The Welcome Back, Kotter and Saturday Night Fever years.

It was also the last decade when all the borough accents and ethnic accents and class-based language were fully in place. These started slipping away in the 80s.

Gay: 1970s

Straight: 1990s and 2000s

R18 True.

YouTube used to have a lot of the news broadcasts from the 1970s (I don't know where they all went) and you could hear those various NYC accents. Mostly all gone now. I remember them well. Click through this:

R18 Here's a good one. It was another world.

R13 Fuck off.

Love it R11. Moved there in the 90s. There were amazing experiences still and remnants of that period but the special time was over.

What years was Sex and the City on? The answer is- those years.

SJP at R24, nice to see you on DL.

The two and a half decades my late husband was alive and living here with me. 1997 - 2022.

Oh, another "and why" post from the traffic stimulator.

The 1890s thorough 1912.

The reasons are obvious.

I have to go with the 70s as well. Lived in Manhattan from 1970-1975. The nightlife, the explosion of clubs to go along with the advent of gay lib. This would have been the time period depicted in "Dancer from the Dance" by Andrew Holleran. We would hang at the Sanctuary, Le Jardin (template for Studio 54), the Limelight (on 7th Ave South, not the church), David Mancuso's "Loft" on E. 3rd and B'way, the Tenth Floor, and then you would move on to the after hours clubs from 4-7 am. Remember the first song that was longer than the traditional 3-4 minutes? "Girl You Need a Change of Mind" by Eddie Kendricks. The gay DJ's ruled NYC and brought disco from the clubs to the radio and then to the masses. Bette was playing the baths and appeared at the first gay pride parade, singing "Friends" at Washington Square Park. I think the period you lived in NYC as a 20-something would be the decade you pick.

I think you’re all under rating the ‘50s and the ‘60s in NYC.

So tell us what was so great, R30.

MIIIIINE, DAHLINNNNG!!! ❤️

I’ll say the 1970s because there was a great culture: Broadway, artists, clubs, gay freedom.

The 1980s were good, with artists like Keith Haring doing his graffiti, but Broadway was shit in the 1980s. So bad in fact that a Broadway theater was sold off to a church. And AIDS came along making everyone afraid.

That Girl made the 1960s look fun. The downtown music scene was incredible.

The 1990s were the last gasp of greatness. The city had cleaned up, there were still some fun clubs, the theater scene was rocking (especially off-Broadway) and you could still get a cheapish apartment. Chelsea had become gay mecca and had some great places like The Big Cup and Bendix Diner.

NYC was over by the time Bloomberg became mayor and Sex and the City brought vapid single girls and tourists looking for Magnolia’s crap cupcakes.

Had a sublet for 425.00 per month, Bowery & Christie in 88" best fucing time

Had a loft studio on 63rd betw Lex and 3rd for $220/mo. in '75.

Well, for a start, R31, it was cheaper to live there - you could actually live in Manhattan. Downtown actually belonged to a different class of people - artists and bohemians. It was more interesting, there were actually things - food, bars, clubs, performance spaces, galleries and more - that you could discover. You could also afford to see a B’way show. And there was plenty of gay sex going on, it was just more discreet. The island had character, there were exciting, inspiring things going on. There was a greater mix of people instead of just a bunch of transplants pretending to be “New Yorkers”. It was more authentic, less theme park. And great culture that was originating there amongst the creatives and artists that lived there. These days, a lot of Manhattan is just like any place else in the U.S. Strip malls aren’t special just because they’re in Manhattan.

R10, I love your post.

My man (a native New Yorker) and I moved there from Chicago in 1980 and left in 1987 because everybody died.

86-94 was pretty fucking great.

I'm sorry, but I don't see how the '80s belong here. How the fuck could it be the "best decade" when the majority of your gay male friends have either already died from AIDS or are plainly headed there?

As for no votes for the 2010s: on the one hand I get it. OTOH that was the first decade where we achieved the milestone of marriage equality. Is being treated with respect & dignity somehow "boring"?

I can see why the '80s might be included. It was a coming-of-age decade (20s in age) for a lot of DLers. It was probably affordable to rent an apartment in the '80s. In fact, it might have been the last decade of apartments being affordable. I have no experience with NYC housing costs, so others can chime in.

I think a lot of what people would consider "best decade" would have to do with affordability. It's no fun when only trust-funders can afford it.

R41, NYC was definitely affordable until well into the '80s, and even the '90s were about one-third the cost of today. It helped that the Black Monday crash in '87 resulted in prices tumbling (for both purchases & rentals), but a lot of the people who bought NYC real estate in the '70s made a total fucking mint. My mom's best friend was one of the early SoHo pioneers, and she bought two entire floors of one of the old cast iron lofts for something like $80K circa 1980. She sold it for $5 million about a decade ago!

Still, in terms of the "best decade," I don't think living expenses are the biggest factor. Even the A gays in the '80s had their ranks decimated by AIDS, and obviously the virus gives no fucks about anyone's socioeconomic status. I wasn't even alive then, but I'm still quite sure the '70s would've been my favorite time there.

I imagine the 80’s also gets votes because of the decade’s pop culture. Madonna, New Wave, prime time and daytime soaps reigned supreme, movies set in NYC were amazing (Moonstruck, Working Girl, When Harry Met Sally…, Fatal Attraction), Broadway blockbusters like Les Miz, etc. I definitely think the 80’s drafts off the pop culture of the day.