FICRY

“Broken Glass,” one of the most recent, moving and relevant exhibitions for our current recessionary times, was held at the Museum of the City of New York from November 2008, till April 2009. The photographs by Ray Mortenson from the early 1980’s in the South Bronx depict the aftermath of rampant fires that destroyed many blocks of housing developments, oftentimes raging for days and weeks. Back then, the South Bronx was a no-man’s-land, structures were completely razed and abandoned. The only indications of life were personal possessions, platform shoes and polyester button-downs, half charred, laying in piles of smoldering rubble.

As Mortenson trudged uptown with his camera, he developed an extremely useful mantra: “Take the 5, stay alive…take the 4, dead for sure.” Indeed, New York during the 1980’s was dead scary. His photographs, duly exhibited at the Museum of the City of New York during the pinnacle of recent economic dismay, serve as a potential omen for the future. In a recent interview, Mr. Mortenson comments on the similarities between then and now, ‘You hear about this happening now in suburban places hit by foreclosures — empty houses, windows going broken, swimming pools filling up with trash.”

The South Bronx fires of the early 1980’s are prefect examples of how ill the United States became after the economic crisis plagued the country in the 1970’s. Strapped for cash, landlords set their homes ablaze to collect insurance money. Several events are to blame for the recession of the 1970’s and 80’s, the most obvious of which was an oil crisis. The oil crisis of 1973 began when members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) created an oil embargo on the United States.  The United States supported the Israeli military during the Yom Kippur war, and OAPEC decided to cease supplying countries that supported Isreal during the conflict.  The 1973 oil price shock, coupled with the stock market crash of 1974, created harsh economic times for the United States.

The least identifiable and explainable of the recession causing factors was threatening inflation, the failure of the gold standard put in place by the Bretton Woods Agreement, lack of government competence, and high unemployment–a recipe for disaster.

The Bretton Woods system of monetary management, established in 1944, was put in place for each country to adopt a monetary policy that maintained the exchange rate of its particular currency within a fixed value–in terms of gold.  From 1962-1972, the dollar was on a steep incline in respect to gold prices, eventually becoming tremendously over valued. By the early 1970’s, the Vietnam War had accelerated inflation, more money was being printed and pumped oversees.  The “Nixon Shock” hit as he imposed a 90 day wage and price control, a 10% import surcharge, and closed the gold window, making the dollar directly nonconvertible to gold.

Uncontrollable inflation, labor disputes, the painful conclusion of the Vietnam War, and high unemployment were the many facets of the 1970’s recession. The crystallization of these factors hit the South Bronx particularly hard during the aftermath years in the 1980s. “With the building of the Cross Bronx Expressway came the displacement of tens of thousands of middle-class people, resulting instantly in deserted slums. “The restructured welfare system encouraged the poorest of immigrants to move to the South Bronx, offering landlords above market rents for accepting welfare clients.”Those left in the half desolate slums were extremely poor and landlords could not afford to renovate their buildings, homes were subsequently forced into deterioration. Rent control made it impossible for landlords to increase their cash flow, making it extremely difficult to afford maintenance and general upkeep of their properties.

The cherry on top of the melting South Bronx economy was the creation of Co-Op City, a $413 million, 15,400-unit apartment complex. “Instead of boosting the South Bronx’s economy by integrating the complex into existing neighborhoods, it was built on the site of an abandoned amusement park, far in the northeast corner of the borough.  The complex failed to support local businesses and bring people back into the deteriorating neighborhoods. “The million dollar complex sucked what was left of the middle class out of the semi-populated pockets in the South Bronx, making the neighborhoods into ghost towns.

Then the fires started. Those left in the abandoned grit learned to sleep with their shoes on for fear their apartments would be set ablaze in the middle of the night.  “Reports of a few tenants receiving notes from their landlords alerting of a midnight fire were uncommon, as most fires set were a shock to the tenants. The South Bronx averaged 12,000 fires a year during the mid-70’s.” 300,000 people fled the area. Carter spoke to saving the charred neighborhood but failed urban policies and renewal plans coupled with rampant violence and drug use caused utter government and fiscal abandonment.

“Don’t move, improve!” became the motto of the few who held faith in the area. “The recession’s effects were obvious, homeless people were shacked up in cardboard boxes on Fifth Avenue, crime was out of control, junkies roamed the streets like zombies, and those courageous enough to visit the city on vacation were genuinely scared to death.” But the city was vibrant. It was the time of gritty glamor; rock n’ roll was raging, clubs were thumping, and people were dancing.

James Walcott for Vanity Fair begs the question “If New York City were to slide back into the crumbling anarchy of the 1970s, as some fear, would that be so bad?” Walcott mentions the glittering aspects of the fiscally tarnished city, citing egalitarianism, fewer people, and burgeoning creativity as examples. Despite these few instances, life was extremely rough and the city was unforgiving tough.

Grandmaster Flash said it best in his lyrics for “The Message”

“Broken glass everywhere
People pissing on the stairs, you know they just dont care
I cant take the smell, I cant take the noise
Got no money to move out, I guess I got no choice
Rats in the front room, roaches in the back
Junkies in the alley with a baseball bat
I tried to get away, but I couldnt get far
Cause the man with the tow-truck repossessed my car

Chorus:
Dont push me, cause Im close to the edge
Im trying not to loose my head
Its like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder
How I keep from going under

Standing on the front stoop, hangin out the window
Watching all the cars go by, roaring as the breezes blow
Crazy lady, livin in a bag
Eating out of garbage piles, used to be a fag-hag

Search and test a tango, skips the life and then go
To search a prince to see the last of senses
Down at the peepshow, watching all the creeps
So she can tell the stories to the girls back home
She went to the city and got so so so ditty
She had to get a pimp, she couldnt make it on her own”

The memories of New York from the 1970’s-1980’s may seem very distant when assessing the New York of today. Yet Flash’s recollection of the past is truly authentic. Many differences separate the crisis then and the crisis now. Although the fires were hot, the burns from the past are, in some senses, healed. For one, the sterile scenery of today is most certainly a point of departure from the rubble of the past. There are new wounds and certainly new treatments needed.

As Walcott asked, could it get so bad..and, would it really be so bad? Flash may ask Walcott to simply revisit his message.

“Its like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder
How I keep from goin under

My brothers doing fast on my mothers t.v.
Says she watches to much, is just not healthy
All my children in the daytime, dallas at night
Cant even see the game or the sugar ray fight
Bill collectors they ring my phone
And scare my wife when Im not home
Got a bum education, double-digit inflation
Cant take the train to the job, theres a strike
At the station
Me on king kong standin on my back
Cant stop to turn around, broke my sacroiliac
Midrange, migraine, cancered membrane
Sometimes I think Im going insane, I swear I might
Hijack a plane!

My son said daddy I dont wanna go to school
Cause the teachers a jerk, he must think Im a fool
And all the kids smoke reefer, I think itd be cheaper
If I just got a job, learned to be a street sweeper
I dance to the beat, shuffle my feet
Wear a shirt and tie and run with the creeps
Cause its all about money, aint a damn thing funny
You got to have a con in this land of milk and honey
They push that girl in front of a train
Took her to a doctor, sowed the arm on again
Stabbed that man, right in his heart
Gave him a transplant before a brand new start
I cant walk through the park, cause its crazy
After the dark keep my hand on the gun, cause they got me on the run
I feel like an outlaw, broke my last fast jaw
Hear them say you want some more, livin on a seesaw

Meredith Mowder, Featured Contributor, FICRY.com