New York EXPLAINED
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1980–today

Comeback & the 21st Century

From the deadliest year on record to the morning that changed everything, and back. A plague the government ignored, a crime wave and the argued-over comeback that followed, the towers, a protest that gave the country a phrase, and a storm tide up the avenues.

The smoking North Tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, seen across the water from Lower Manhattan’s waterfront.
The World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Photograph by Kenneth Gross, NIST / U.S. Department of Commerce. Public domain.
  1. 1983

    March 1983

    1,112 and Counting

    Kramer’s polemic in a gay New York newspaper was one of the first sustained alarms about the scale of the AIDS epidemic, and helped spark the activism that became ACT UP.

    If this article doesn’t scare the shit out of you, we’re in real trouble.

    Larry Kramer, "1,112 and Counting," the New York Native, 1983

    The number in the title was the U.S. case count at the time. Within a few years AIDS would be the leading cause of death for young men in New York.

    Source: The David Wojnarowicz Foundation
  2. 1987

    March 1987

    Silence = Death

    Wheatpasted across Lower Manhattan, the black poster with an upward-pointing pink triangle became the defining image of AIDS activism.

    SILENCE = DEATH

    The Silence=Death Project collective (Avram Finkelstein and five others); adopted by ACT UP New York

    It’s often credited to the art collective Gran Fury, but six men made it earlier. The pink triangle reclaimed the badge the Nazis used to mark gay prisoners.

    Source: The New York Public Library Read the full story
  3. 1990

    1990

    The Deadliest Year

    1990 was the deadliest year in modern New York history, the benchmark against which every later "comeback" was measured.

    New York recorded 2,245 murders in 1990, its all-time peak, at the height of the crack epidemic — roughly six killings a day.

    New York Police Department figure (1990)

    The NYPD’s official count is 2,245; some sources put it as high as 2,605. By the 2010s the city would see fewer than 300 murders a year. How much credit goes to which mayor is still a bar fight.

    Source: Newsweek (citing the NYPD) Read the full story
  4. 2001

    September 11, 2001

    More Than Any of Us Can Bear

    Hijackers flew two planes into the World Trade Center; both towers fell, killing 2,753 people in New York and turning Lower Manhattan into a ruin.

    The number of casualties will be more than any of us can bear, ultimately.

    Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, asked that afternoon to estimate the dead

    The line is usually shortened to "more than we can bear." His actual words were "more than any of us can bear, ultimately." It is now inscribed at the memorial.

    Source: 9/11 Memorial & Museum / CNN transcript Read the full story
  5. 2001

    September 11, 2001

    Reaching the 78th Floor

    Palmer climbed roughly 78 floors, reached the airplane’s impact zone, and was directing the rescue when the tower collapsed at 9:59 a.m. He and his company were killed.

    Ladder 15, we’ve got two isolated pockets of fire. We should be able to knock it down with two lines.

    FDNY Battalion Chief Orio Palmer, radio transmission from the South Tower’s impact zone, minutes before it fell

    343 firefighters died that morning. The recovered radio tapes catch Palmer calm and methodical to the end, doing the job.

    Source: Port Authority radio transcript (Internet Archive)
  6. 2009

    June 2009

    A Park in the Sky

    An abandoned freight viaduct, saved from demolition by two neighbors and reborn as an elevated park the world copied.

    We were from the community. We wanted to do it for the neighborhood. Ultimately, we failed.

    Robert Hammond, co-founder of the High Line, reflecting in 2017

    The park drew millions and supercharged luxury development. Its own co-founder said it failed the neighbors who were there first.

    Source: CityLab, via DNAinfo Read the full story
  7. 2011

    September 17, 2011

    We Are the 99%

    Protesters occupied a Financial District park for 59 days against economic inequality, and a slogan reframed the national argument around the wealthiest one percent.

    We are the 99%.

    Occupy Wall Street, Zuccotti Park, 2011

    It had no single leader and won no single law, but it put "the 1%" into the language for good, three years after the crash that started on the same streets.

    Source: Occupy Wall Street (history)
  8. 2012

    October 29, 2012

    Sandy’s Surge

    Sandy’s surge flooded Lower Manhattan, the subway tunnels, and waterfront neighborhoods across all five boroughs, killing dozens of New Yorkers and cutting power to much of the city.

    The greatest danger posed by Sandy is the coastal storm surge and flooding that it will produce.

    Mayor Michael Bloomberg, briefing the city before Hurricane Sandy made landfall, October 2012

    The water hit nearly fourteen feet at the Battery. Sandy turned climate change from a forecast into a thing that had already happened here, and reset how the city plans its own coastline.

    Source: City of New York, Office of the Mayor Read the full story

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