Uraniumfish

New York City's Worst Disasters, a list

Call me winter-weary, but I actually found it interesting to skim through this list of the city's worst ever disasters:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_New_York_City_crimes_and_disasters

Quite a lot I didn't even know about. I also found the murders chart fascinating, especially how the number of murders dropped so drastically in a period of about ten years, after 1990.

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JenMac 2yrs+

That is really strange. Did Bloomy get rid of them too? Or, did people get better at hiding bodies and whatnot after the emergence of DNA testing? I like how many petty robberies were tied to horrible murders in the 21st century whereas people were living in squalor in the 18th century and all anyone had to worry about was yellow fever.

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Uraniumfish 2yrs+

I think the crack epidemic hit NYC really badly in the 80's which may be an explanation for how it got quite so bad in the first place.

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AdamS 2yrs+

So I found this absolutely fascinating after following the link on wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NYC_murders.PNG

This is an image showing how many murders have occurred year to year. WOW!! What happened that let it get to the 90's high? And what bought I back down again?

AJ

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DBlack 2yrs+

@JenMac Bloomberg had nothing to do with in. Dinkins, New York City's first black mayor, was in office from 1990 to 1993. He inherited a mess and a lot of people perceived him as ineffective, but I think this had more to do with his low-key personality. The crime rates went way down during his term, and kept going down under Giuliani, who came in in 1994.

In the 90's New York had a huge growth and resurgence, both financially and also with an influx of people coming to the city. The dot-com money being made at the time was a big factor in this, and New York was one of the hubs (second to California, of course). Before all that, in the 80's, the city had been bankrupt and had emptied out, so was ripe for a crime wave.