"The Deuce" - HBO Series with James Franco and Maggie Gyllenhaal

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Tone, Jul 17, 2017.

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  1. Gems-A-Bems

    Gems-A-Bems Forum Resident

    Location:
    The Duke City
    The data that shows crime dropped before Giuliani coincindes with the national drop.

    I also don’t doubt what you saw with your eyes. That was part of my original point. Giuliani didn’t clean up the city as much as he made the parts you bothered to view appear less dirty.
     
    jjhunsecker likes this.
  2. jjhunsecker

    jjhunsecker Senior Member

    Location:
    New York city
    I rode, and still ride the IRT almost daily since the late 1970s. You've bought into the Guiliani myth, that he single-handedly saved NYC....Especially the subway, which as NY State controlled agency, he had no direct control over. The state was the one who funded the subway cars that were graffiti-proof. As the new subway cars could be easily cleaned, the graffiti artists gave up. It was Dinkins who actually hired more police officers. What gets me about Guiliani is that he vehemently went after the porno stores and strip clubs, while his own personal life was WAY less than pristine...so who was he to preach what was "moral", I ask ...The real estate in Times Square became too valuable. It was all about protecting the investments.

    As I said, I'm not in favor of crime, or any type of coercion...But I knew personally lots of women who worked as strippers and in porn, and they all did it by their own choice. It may have been a BAD choice, but it was still THEIR choice. If someone committed an actual crime, they should have been arrested and prosecuted for it. But porn and sex work does not have to lead to crime, and you can't legislate morality
     
    Last edited: Aug 5, 2018
  3. jjhunsecker

    jjhunsecker Senior Member

    Location:
    New York city
    All it did was drive this stuff underground. I don't think a great city should just be a Duane Reade and a bank on every block...There's room for the Met, and for Show World
     
  4. jjhunsecker

    jjhunsecker Senior Member

    Location:
    New York city
    I was in NYU in the 80s, and anything east of Broadway was a bit sketchy back then... But having grown up in Brooklyn, I had developed some street smarts, and knew how to handle myself and also how to avoid trouble. I was roaming all over the city, and almost never had any issues or problems
     
    Last edited: Aug 5, 2018
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  5. jjhunsecker

    jjhunsecker Senior Member

    Location:
    New York city
    Actually, one of the biggest factors in the drop of crime was the decrease in crack use, which had pushed up the crime. As the crack addicts either cleaned up or died off, the crime rate decreased. This scenario played out across almost every big city in America
     
    Gems-A-Bems likes this.
  6. Chazro

    Chazro Forum Resident

    Location:
    West Palm Bch, Fl.
    I remember, pre Giuliani, and this may seem like small potatoes but..., how at practically every major intersection, there'd be bums with filthy rags asking for money to clean yr windshield. And if you refused them saying you don't need it, they'd spit on yr windshield and sometimes even snap your wipers. This was at practically every exit/entrance to the tunnels and bridges and it was 24/7/365. After Giuliani became mayor, that problem completely went away!
     
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  7. GregM

    GregM The expanding man

    Location:
    Bay Area, CA
    The graffiti artists and other criminals also gave up elsewhere in the city at the exact same time which is a remarkable coincidence since it supposedly had nothing to do with Giuliani and the changes in policing. Times square was always the most recognizable place in New York; it just goes to show how you can catalyze value by keeping the streets safe. San Francisco is now going in reverse, as medical associations that have held their annual meetings there for decades are deciding the streets are now too dangerous. And this is in a city where property values may exceed New York. Hiring more officers wasn't the point. The corruption and bad habits of the precincts was legendary and needed to be fixed. Cops weren't doing their jobs, and hiring more of them to not do their jobs was not a good allocation of city resources.

    It is horrible for society. I don't think people understand how horrible until they have kids of their own to raise. And the "their" choice argument rapidly unravels when you consider the countless examples of trafficking, abduction, assault and murder. There are mountains of data that show the negative effects and how it bleeds into other areas.

    Ok, I felt similarly every time I was in NY when I started spending significant time there, including Bronx, Brooklyn and the lower East side.. But it's one thing to be a young man with nothing to lose. It's different for others, and the streets of NYC are supposed to be for everyone.
     
  8. ralphb

    ralphb "First they came for..."

    Location:
    Brooklyn, New York
    Graffiti artists were not criminals, they were , for the most part, artists. Trust me, seeing those multi-color explosions of color on a train car roaring past you was one of the great New York experiences. And staring at one of Keith Haring's drawings was a great way to pass the time while waiting for a train.
    Nothing wrong with porn or sex work if it's you making the decisions. You'd be surprised at how many of the punk rockers in NYC during the 70's were doing that to supplement the meager income they made as musicians.
    The streets of New York are for everyone, but not at 3am. Not then, not now. Anyone who thinks otherwise hasn't read the small print in the brochure.
    And there is something very wrong with people pushing baby strollers on Times Square at midnight.
     
  9. Gems-A-Bems

    Gems-A-Bems Forum Resident

    Location:
    The Duke City
    I would question the memory of anyone who thinks Giuliani fixed the corruption and “bad habits” of the NYPD.
    [​IMG]

    I’m also not sure if you’re joking about graffiti. I have literally thousands of pictures of Giuliani-era examples.
     
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  10. GregM

    GregM The expanding man

    Location:
    Bay Area, CA
    It's all relative.
     
  11. dprokopy

    dprokopy Senior Member

    Location:
    Near Seattle, WA
    I'm not one to dispute the artistic merits of grafitti art. But anyone who defaces the property of others is, by definition, a criminal.
     
  12. Gems-A-Bems

    Gems-A-Bems Forum Resident

    Location:
    The Duke City
    Which was my point in the first place. Glad you finally understand.
     
  13. jjhunsecker

    jjhunsecker Senior Member

    Location:
    New York city
    Well, I still live here, and have a career here, and raised a family in New York City. We never wanted a sterilized suburban cookie cutter lifestyle...just not for us. We prefer more diversity and more culture than you find in most other places.

    I doubt that there's any less police corruption than in the past. In fact, Rudy's appointed police comissioner Bernard Kerik actually went to jail ! I don't buy into the myth of Rudy the Superman who saved NYC, and a lot of his policies did as much harm as good...Plus, seeing him today...well, let me not get into it, before I get banned ! And to reiterate, Rudy (or any NYC mayor) does not run the transit system. Any blame (or praise) needs to go to the MTA, which is a State run agency not under the jurisdiction of the Mayor. Cleaner stations, cleaner cars, thank them.

    Plus I don't think porn or sex work in inherently bad, if one makes the choice to either view it, or create it or participate in it. The things you mention- like trafficking and assault and murder- ARE crimes, and should be treated as such. But those things happen under lots of circumstances, not just in conjunction with porn
     
    Last edited: Aug 6, 2018
  14. jjhunsecker

    jjhunsecker Senior Member

    Location:
    New York city
    Rudy ordered the cops to go after so-called "quality of life" crimes...which included giving summonses and harassing people drinking a can of beer on their own front steps...but oddly, never people sipping wine while lounging in Central Park listening to the Philharmonic...If you're well off enough to afford to sip a cocktail at an outdoor cafe in Soho or the Upper East Side, you're fine. If you don't have enough dough for that, and dare to sip a Bud while sitting on a park bench, or your own stoop- watch out.
     
    Last edited: Aug 6, 2018
  15. mindblanking

    mindblanking The Bourbon King

    Location:
    Baltimore, MD
    I've been a comic for a long time and in the mid-late nineties, at the height of Giulianism, I had this great joke about the fact that one of the reasons crime dropped is because they changed the classifications. I believe it was The Daily News who did a big expose'. Joke was- "What do we have here? A rape?... Where'd it happen? Oh, in the street? Screw it, let's just call this a traffic violation."
     
  16. NickCarraway

    NickCarraway Forum Resident

    Location:
    Gastonia, NC
    If you want to point out that the state (MTA) runs the subway rather than the city (Giuliani) then you also need to point out that the code differences for alcohol consumption are enacted by the City Council, not the mayor. Nobody's busted for sipping a cocktail at Aquagrill because City Council hasn't passed city code against it. Wanna photoshop a Budweiser into Billy Joel's "An Innocent Man" cover on Mercer? Lobby City Council to update public consumption code.

    BTW I supported Ron Paul in '08 so I am no fan at all of Ghouliani. Just pointing out how the separation of powers works in NYC.
     
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  17. jjhunsecker

    jjhunsecker Senior Member

    Location:
    New York city
    My point was that a poor person who can't afford Aquagrill is denied the pleasure of consuming an alcoholic beverage in the fresh air. And even more importantly, people who are sitting on the Great Lawn in Central Park listening to the Boston Pops Orchestra, or in Bryant Park watching a screening of "Breakfast at Tiffany's", will open and drink from wine bottles and other beverages with impunity....yet in Guiliani's NY a guy sipping a Corona in front of his own building, especially if he was in the South Bronx or Rivington Street or East New York, would get hassled by the cops under the guise of "Quality of Life" crimes....
     
  18. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    Hope season 2 is better.
     
  19. NickCarraway

    NickCarraway Forum Resident

    Location:
    Gastonia, NC
    In what way(s) did you find S1 lacking?
     
  20. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    B o r i n g.
     
  21. NickCarraway

    NickCarraway Forum Resident

    Location:
    Gastonia, NC
    I heard Curtis Mayfield's "If There's A Hell Below" on Little Steven's Underground Garage on the way to work this morning; got me jazzed for S2 :pineapple:

     
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  22. Trace

    Trace Senior Member

    Location:
    Washington State
    Maybe they are taking the lesson learned in VINYL and bypassing Punk.
     
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  23. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    That was embarrassingly bad.
     
  24. Trace

    Trace Senior Member

    Location:
    Washington State
    Yes, it was, but at the very end, it started to grow on me. Maybe I felt sorry for it, like an ugly puppy! :laugh:
     
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  25. ralphb

    ralphb "First they came for..."

    Location:
    Brooklyn, New York
    Agreed. Just awful on so many levels.
     
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