The Day New York Defaulted: Inside Gotham's Fiscal Fall

The Day New York Defaulted: Inside Gotham's Fiscal Fall

In November 1974, New York Times film critic Vincent Canby wrote that the city had become “a metaphor for what looks like the last days of American civilization.”  “It is run by fools,” he wrote. “Its citizens are at the mercy of its criminals who, often as not, are protected by an unholy alliance of civil libertarians and crooked cops. The air is foul. The traffic is impossible. Services are diminishing and the morale is such that ordering a cu…