| History Of New York City (1946-1977) |
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The history of New York City (1946–1977) saw the emergence of New York immediately after World War II as the unquestioned leading city of the world. However, after peaking in population in 1950 , the city slowly declined with changes in industry and commerce, Urban Sprawl outside the city and crime, reaching something of a crisis period in the 1970s . POST-WAR PEAK As many of the world's great cities lay in ruin after World War II, New York City assumed a new global prominence, even becoming home to United Nations Headquarters , built 1947 – 1952 . After the war New York inherited the role of Paris as center of the art world with Abstract Expressionism , and became a rival to London as an art market. However, the population declined after 1950 , with increasing suburbanization in the New York Metropolitan Area as pioneered in Levittown, New York . In a sign of growing economic rivalry from the West Coast the city lost both of its and the Giants both moved west after the 1957 season. They were replaced in 1962 by the Mets . The Immigration Act Of 1965 abolished national-origin quotas and laid the basis for the city's modern Asian American community. On November 9 , 1965 , the city endured a Massive Power Blackout along with much of eastern North America . The city's experience during the ordeal became the subject of a motion picture entitled ''Where Were You When The Lights Went Out?'' Manufacturing declined, and the advent of Container Ship ping shifted much maritime trade to New Jersey, which had the requisite empty space to accommodate the large stacks of containers. Adult entertainment sites filled the Times Square district beginning in the mid- 1960s , and continuing until the " Disneyfication " of the area in the mid- 1990s . There are still such sites in the vicinity, although far fewer of them. 1970S The 1970s are widely regarded as New York's darkest period in history. By about 1970 , the city had become notorious the world over for having high rates of Crime and other social disorder. A popular song in the autumn of 1972 , "American City Suite," chronicled, in allegorical fashion, the decline in the city's quality of life. The early 1970s also saw the construction of the massive World Trade Center complex by the Port Authority Of New York And New Jersey on the site of the Radio Row electronics district in Lower Manhattan . The Twin Towers displaced the Empire State Building in Midtown as the tallest in the world for a brief period in the 1970s, before the title was taken by Chicago's Sears Tower . Financial crisis hit the city in the mid-1970s, when it briefly appeared that the city might have to declare bankruptcy during the mayoralty of John Lindsay . The fiscal crisis resulted largely from the combination of generous Welfare spending by the city government in the 1960s and the stock market and economic stagnation of the 1970s . President Gerald R. Ford earned the enmity of many New Yorkers when he refused to use federal money to "bail out" the city. On October 30 , 1975 , the '' New York Daily News '' famously summarized Ford's decision in a headline: "Ford to City: Drop Dead". He was later compelled by advisors—who feared that allowing New York to slide into insolvency could trigger further economic crises—to reverse himself, and did so. The Blackout Of 1977 struck the City of New York on July 13 , 1977 , lasting for 25 hours and resulting in heavy Looting and other unrest. The financial crisis, the high crime rates, and the damage from the blackouts led to a widespread belief that New York City was in a permanent decline. This resulted in a Massive Exodus of white middle class families to the suburbs. By the end of the 1970s, the city had lost nearly a million people, a population loss that would not be fully healed for another twenty years. The election of the more conservative Ed Koch as mayor in 1977 is widely seen as marking an end of the era of classical " Liberal New York". |
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