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having a fiscal crisis - in spite of its
SIX·SJLLION·DOLLAR BUDGET.
Concurrently, thc
third
teachers'
strike in two months was in ful l swing.
One million pupils were not receiving
their education. Worse yet, they were
dumped onto city streets with nothing
constructive to do.
T he Long-Standing Problems
New York City's immediate crises
only reflect the existence of
long-Jtand–
ing
problems.
Take the education problem.
Already the leve! of New York City
education is seriously deteriorating.
Anyone who has attended New York
City schools knows that a good share of
children cannot get a thorough educa–
tion because of the Blackboard Jungle
ciccumstances which often exist. Many
teen-agers are afraid to leave their
immediate environment. And if they
could, many would not be able to
l'ead
the subway signs to know where they
were going!
Education is only one aspect of the
crisis. Lack of money is another. Many
immediate fiscal dilemmas are caused by
long-standing economic problems. One
is the skyrocketing welfare roll. It
increases by 20,000 people per month.
Today, New York City is a bottomless
pit of welfare.
Approximately
011e
out
of eight New Yorker;
is supported by
relief dole. New York has the highest
wclfare payments in the United States.
The city is bccoming a magnet for the
poor of other states nnd communitics.
At the same time, more than one mil–
lion taxpayers have fled the city. As a
result, the possible tax revenue is dimin–
ishing. For those hnrdy souls with a city
addrcss, the tax bmden has
do11bled
in
ten years. For those who can afford lo
leave, there frankly isn't much incentive
for staying.
Housing Dilemma
Meanwhile, tbe New York City
slums are literally becoming "disastcr
areas." Said one Senator: "Expert wit–
nesses predicted the city will
ADD
75,·
000 potential homeless
ammally
over
each
of the next fiftecn years." This was
likened to fifteen major hurricane dis–
asters sweeping across New York City
each year.
There is a paradox in all this.
The
PLAIN TRUTH
Even though homeless individuals are
added to the city's woes, approximately
130,000 apartments and houses have
been left to rot in the city within the
last five years.
Other cities are suffering a similar
"ghost town" fate.
In Detroit, buildings are being aban–
doned at the rate of over 500 yearly.
Cleveland finds itself .with an added
800 empty apartments and houses yearly.
In Philadelphia the rate is 25,000
abandoned dwellings per year. Chicago
comes up with a figure of 1800 structures
a year suffering a similar desolation
fate.
While houscs are being abandoncd,
the streets are getting more crowdcd
than ever. Today, thc vehicular pace in
downtown New York City is a tortoise
pace of 6 to
8
miles per hour. In the
horse-and-buggy year of 1907, the rate
of travel was a speedier 11.5 miles per
hour.
City Criroe Crisis
Meanwhile, major cities are increas–
ingly plagued by violent crime. Dr.
Milton Eisenhower, Chairman of the
National Commission on the Causes
and Prevention of Violence, warns that
"violent crime in the United Statcs is
primarily a
phenomenon of large citieJ.
The 26 cities with 500,000 or more resi–
dents and containing about 17 percent
of the total population contribute about
45 percent of the total reported major
violent crimes."
The six cities with one million or
more residents - of which Ncw York
City is chief - have 10 percent of the
population and 30 percent of the crime.
The rate of rcported New York City
crime in 1968 was 21.8 percent above
that
of
1967. Street crimes rose even
more dramatically. Robbery was up 50
percent.
Americans used to sing about the
"Sidewalks of New York." Today, you
can get yourself robbed, mugged or
killed on those same sidewalks.
Not long ago, one scientist set out to
determine whether big-city üfe cncour–
aged crime more than small-town life.
Many tests were made. One called for
researchers to place an automobile for
64 hours in New York City and another
in the small town of Palo Alto,
California.
December 1970
License plates on both cars were
removed and the hoods were opened.
Result?
"The New York car was stripped of
all movab/e partJ
within the first 24
hours, and by the end of the three days
was only a hunk of metal rubble ... the
Palo Alto car was left
UNTOUCHEO"
(Science,
March 13, 1970, page 1464,
Stanley Milgram, article "The Expe–
rience of Living in Citics").
People Just Don't Cace
This pinpoints the biggest problem
of New York City -
oc
of any city:
the hmn(/11 e/ement.
New Yorkers, like
other city dwellers, have by-and-Jarge
lost their human compassion and their
desire to help others.
The reaction of an out-of-towner
quoted below illustrates this tragic big–
city problem:
"When
1
fiist carne to New York it
seemed like a nightmare. As soon as
1
got off the train at Grand Central
I
was
caught up in pushing, shoving crowds
on 42nd Street. Sometimes people
bumped into me without apology; what
really frightened me was to see two
people literally engaged in combat for
possession of a cab.
"Why were they [city pcople] so
rushed?
"Even drunks on the street were
bypassed without a glance. People
didn't seem to care about each other at
all" (
lbid.,
page 1461) .
This problem - the effect of the city
on the
HUMAN MJND-
is increasingly
the subject of concecned experiments
and studies.
In a random sample of over 2,100
perseos chosen from every part of the
borough of Manhattan,
over half
admit–
ted to having an emotional or mental
problem for which they wanted heJp!
To list all the examples where people
simply rcfuse to help someone else
would be endless. Remember Kitty Gen–
ovese? She was chased by an attacker
and, after repeated attempts, finally
killed. Many pcople saw what was
going on and could have come to her
aid. None did!
Where
Will All This
Eod?
With such massive problems - both
technological and of the human spirit
(Conlimted on page 31 )