True. I was thinking the same thing. The 70s were crap in many North American cities but few more crappy than NYC in certain senses. Once the unfortunate Viet Nam vets starting coming back and added to the already burgeoning hard-drugs scene, it was nearly game over.
I've seen a lot of NY subway videos on YT but this one was unique and rare. That was really the beginning of a bleak period for NY because by 1975 we almost went bankrupt, and Ford wouldn't bail us out. After the mess that was 1977 (it was kinda fun for me because I was just a kid) my father packed us up and moved to Long Island.
Ford wouldn't bail us out? Good for him! Your father moved you all to LI? Smart move! My father used to say, the Vietnam war taught us that sometimes you do have to quit.
Interesting that she speaks on the IRT and the intense heat on the trains/platforms. In 2024, it's sadly still the same. The Union Square stop in particular is dangerously hot during the summer, to the point where people waiting for the train are drenched in sweat when it finally arrives 🥵.
The lowest level of the West 4th Street Station is also Hell on Earth during the Summer. One of the most unbearable stations to spend more than a few minutes on the platform.
She had every right to complain at that time, most of the trains didn't have air conditioning, now most of the trains have air conditioning, maybe one or two cars of the train set the air conditioning is broken. She would probably smack y'all for complaining about that today compared to back then.
This video is funny because as the lady is complaing about how crowded and hot the subway cars are during commission hours, you have the camera man filming in a very crowded car. Makes you wonder how they got that 70s style camera in that crowded car in the first place.
The shot of the TA logo on the R-17 shuttle car. I have seen tens of thousands of historic transit images and never once seen a TA disc on any non World's Fair livery IRT car. Everything those people complained about was true. The subway of today is more comfortable, easier to navigate (if not handicapped physically), and cheaper for riders connecting to both local and express buses.
I remember when the bus and train was 15 cents.I could swing from one end the subway car to the other using just the hand straps and my feet never touching the floor when we were kids.OF course the car had to be empty and moving.Urban gymnastics.
These complaints sound so lame in today’s world …what can people expect when u have so many millions of people living in the limited land mass of the five boros.
Honey, I wish the fare was still that price. I can't afford to go out anymore because the fare is so high; I used to have to pay over thirty dollars a week when I was working on that frickin' unlimited ride MetroCard!🤬
The subways were better in the 70's - 90's. Very few if any people with mental illness, homeless people less crime. If that woman was complaining about the subways then i wonder if she's still alive to complain about the Subway today
WTF are you smoking???? The guardian angels started in 1981 because the amount of crime in the subways in 1981. You definitely didn’t live thru that time so don’t say it was better
@@vladimirputinforUSA Exactly, and in Brooklyn they were calling one Summer "Chain Snatching Season". The Transit Police were fighting a losing battle for quite a while.
@@vladimirputinforUSA oh yes I did I'm a 60's baby that grew up in the 70's , became a teenager in the 80's and used to go to the clubs in the mid-80's and nothing happened to me on the subways so what are you smoking?? K2? Meth ??? Or Fen fen. And to add to that I was raised in now what they call the murder capital of New York City Brownsville Van Dyke Projects from 1967( when I was born) to 1983
Big whining babies. NY isn’t paradise we know… the subways aren’t easy to deal with… but what do you expect when millions of people ride it a day? What do expect when it is the fastest way to get you where you wanna go? I mean they can always walk… that would save them that 60 cents a day. 😂😂😂
It seems laughable now; imagine commuters complaining about a 10-cent fare increase, from 20 cents to 30 cents in 1970. And the cost of living was comparatively much cheaper than it is today. But the minimum wage in 1970 was about 1.25 an hour, I believe, at a time when most NYers made roughly about 80-100 dollars a week, give or take. Now it's almost 3 dollars and the cost of living in this troubled city is far, far higher than it was even in 1970.
Great document of NYC just as it was beginning its notorious descent. The issues plaguing the Transit Authority and the city writ large would all come to a head by the mid-1970s when President Gerald Ford infamously told New York the federal government wouldn't bail the city out until it got its sorry finances in order. I'm sure few New Yorkers at the time of this nadir could have imagined that 50 years hence NYC would be one of the most expensive, fast-growing, and (statistically, if not actually) safest cities in the nation!
When they mention the fare increase, I wonder if the "graffiti era" that was to come had the intended consequence of keeping fares down? I admit that this is purely speculative but I never considered this connection before.
That sure sounds like Karen Lynn Gorney ( Saturday Night Fever/All My Children actress) in spots. But the ridership drama here real, and true to this day, except more costly and worse!
