New York City at that time

New York City in the late 1970s was plagued by severe economic and political troubles unlike any of the city's inhabitants had experienced before. Faced with economic stagnation, industrial decline, and the looming threat of bankruptcy, the City of New York responded by laying off city workers and cutting municipal services such as sanitation and after-school programs. While downtown city centers were depicted as places with high crime rates and bad living conditions, the suburbs' well organized residential areas were promoted as a good place to live. Besides, the city's already high unemployment rates got higher, and due to several factors, many middle class families — more than 820,000 people — fled to the suburbs in a movement known as white flight, desperate for jobs. The merit to live in the city center has decreased dramatically, becoming a less popular choice for many young students during that time.

New York’s fiscal crisis of the mid-1970s is surely one of the weirdest moments in the history of the city. It was a time when the wholesale disintegration of the largest city in the most powerful nation on earth seemed entirely possible. According to the then-city budget director, Peter Goldmark Jr, “many people believe there is little or no real security or receivables behind these obligations.”