Nostalgia For Late-1970s New York

My friend Edmund White writes: ‘There is a strong current of nostalgia for the late ’70s and early ’80s in New York, even among those who never lived through it — the era when the city was edgy and dangerous.” I share that nostalgia, because I moved to New York in the early 80s, and loved the dirt and the menace and the fact that there was still a (now silly-seeming) distinction between high art and low art. And of course Manhattan was still affordable for broke painters and writers and composers and troublemakers. The city was a playground for adults; now it’s a playground for children.

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