Times Square night in 1970. Photo by James Wolcott

34th Street and 7th Avenue facing North, 1977.
Photo by Laura Knight

I was a teenager in Texas during all of it, so I missed out on the New York City of the 1970s. It was a very different place than where I live today. The Bowery, now lined with million dollar apartments, lived up to it’s infamous name by hosting much of the city’s illicit activities. Dealers and hookers worked pretty openly in the now-santitized Times Square. Mid-decade the city went through a HUGE final crisis, much like Detroit has been experiencing lately. In ’77, a city-wide blackout plunged Gotham into chaos after the power went out for a full 24 hours. By the end of the decade, the city saw 1,814 homicides, three times what it is today — while the population declined to just over 7 million, down a million from the previous decade. Today, on the face of it, people would LONG to return to a time when the city was cheaper, but these grim stats are a grim reminder that is was a tough town. Granted, there were exciting things happening too: Andy Warhol’s Factory, Saturday Night Live in their heyday, Studio 54 and CBGB‘s thrived in a climate of sexual freedom and wild creativity. But in these pictures, none of that good, or bad, is apparent. Just street life –like the great 70s anthem says:

Street life / You can run away from time / Street life / For a nickel, for a dime Street life / But you better not get old / Street life / Or you’re gonna feel the cold

July 4th, 1976 – Bicentennial celebration in New York Harbor. Photo by Steven Lindner

Facing Southwest to Fourteenth Street from Third Avenue. Photo by Bill Ricco

Sixth Avenue facing South from 59th Street

Northeast Corner of 14th Street at 7th Avenue, 1972. Photo by Lionel Martinez

Southwest corner of 74th and Broadway, the storefront was located inside the Ansonia. Early 1970s

Hell’s Kitchen, 1973. Photo by Paul Mones

Sixth Avenue at 27th Street, 1978. Photo by Manel Armengol

Lafayette Street at Bleecker, facing North, 1976. Screen grab from the film “Marathon Man”

68th and Broadway, facing Northeast, 1980

Northeast corner of Delancey and Bowery, c.1978. Photo by Manel Armengol

Madison Avenue at 64th Street, facing South, 1979. Photo by Alan Benjamin

Eighth Avenue at 41st Street, facing Northeast, 1978. Photo by Tony Smull

Mulberry Street at Hester, facing North, 1975. Photo by Nick DeWolf

14th Street between 9th and 10th Avenues, facing East, 1976. Photo by Eugene Gannon

42nd Street at Seventh Avenue, facing Northwest, 1970

West End Avenue at 79th Street, facing North, 1979

Ninth Avenue at 56th Street, facing South, 1979

Seventh Avenue South at Perry Street, facing South, 1973. Photo by Dan McCoy

(via Vintage Everyday)