NYC 1975

Source: This piece was originally posted at The New Democrat

The late 1960s and probably the 1970s as a whole was a very rough period for New York City. Facing high crime rates, high poverty, high unemployment, a lousy economy in general, as well as mismanagement of city funds by the City Government. And then you add the recession of the 1974-75 that effected the whole country including New York and you have a huge economic mess that this city was facing and something serious had to be done about it.

So what the Gerald Ford Administration was confronted with in 1975 to go along with all the economic and financial problems that the rest of the country was going through, was how to help out the biggest city in the country. Something that had to be done, otherwise New York City would’ve gone bankrupt. So what the Ford Administration along with Congress and the New York State Government and New York banks did was arranged for loan guarantees for New York City to keep the city afloat financially and for them to avoid bankruptcy.