While the government’s same function is destroyed from the inside, it puts an unusual historical documentary, “Drop Dead City”, the works and responsibilities of the government and the center, in rebuilding a minute of the financial crisis in New York City in the mid -1990s. It follows the causes of the crisis, its short-term effects, and the complexity of its decision, the film brings the philosophical effects of the social ideals that put the city in a financial hole and the political forces that almost prevented the rescue.
The title of the documentary comes from more A famous flash point In the crisis: In October 1975, as the city faces an imminent bankruptcy, President Gerald Ford made a speech that he will lead any bill for Congress that is trying to save Mali; the next day , daily news He ran a title that became famous immediately: “Ford to Medina: Dotifying dead“Its influence was strong: Ford became a target of protests in New York, and the national polling moved from a negative to positive to positive, and by the end of the year, Ford signed a draft law that submitted $ 2.3 billion in federal loans. Remember people. When he lost difficulty in the 1976 presidential elections, against Jimmy Carter, New York State presented the margin of victory in the electoral college, and New York City presented the margin of victory in the state.
“Drop Dead City”, directed by Peter Just and Michael Rohatin. Estan is an old warrior in historical documentary films, and his experience in dealing with information is clear; The film tells a very complicated story on beautiful financial points and political maneuvering, along with the basic social and personal stories, with a brilliant touch and a rapid feeling of wonder. It uses the archive shots – protection and selectivity but resonance and convincing – to transfer the city’s tone at that time. The coach of Yost, Rohatyn, has an interest in the subject more than my historical: his father, Felix Rohatyn, is the investment banker who designed the city’s financial rescue. (Felix died in 2019, but the numbers are in archive clips.) Michael is known as dozens of films – this has recorded one and hears as he played the keyboards and guitars – and “Drop Dead City” is clearly a personal person for him; He talked about shooting two hundred hours of shots. Although Michael was only 12 years old in 1975, the story is part of his world, and the joyful frankness of many major participants in the drama on the camera through their convergence with him.
The story stipulated in “Drop Dead City” is still amazing even after half a century. In 1974, the new mayor in New York, Abraham Bae, took office, believing that the city was billions of dollars. During the previous four years, the city observer was, so he should know. However, the young man in this office, Harrison Golden, conducted a review and discovered that religion was actually about six billion dollars. Financial affairs were in a state of complete chaos. At one point, Golden stumbles on a huge set of canceled canceled checks in a wardrobe. The problem was not that the city’s books were wrong, but “there were no books of Fukin” – with unforgettable words for Stephen Berger, who was later brought to help corrected matters, as head of the newly formed financial control council. The story took the role of the Emperor-Junior: The city was meeting the salaries lists of issuing a tour after a tour of short-term bonds, subscription (i.e., purchased for resale) by banks. In early 1975, John Osnato, a young lawyer who represented a bank concerned, asked a assistant financial observer about the expected tax receipts needed to support bonds, and he became unhappy with the answers, convinced that they did not lack what was required. Immediately, banks refused to guarantee bonds.
Beame has reduced expenses, and placed the city’s employees, including teachers, police officers, firefighters and sewage workers. Resulting protests and strikes; The garbage accumulated in the streets, the players rose, and the police unions and the firefighters tried to intimidate tourists away from the city by advertising around “Fear City”. (Former mayor David Deninskins is called “disgraceful”. He also turned to the New York State government and its new ruler, Hugh Carey, for help. Carrie Felix Rohatin, a veteran manner in Wall Street, took advantage of the establishment of the Municipal Assistance Corporation (Mac). Rohatyn was assigned to collect banks, unions, politicians and officials to agree on a rescue plan.
Institutional creativity in the face of the crisis is launched in “Drop Dead City”, with almost aesthetic attractiveness – and if there is a decisive reminder, if any, institutions embody the ideals, just like the destruction of institutions is also a kind of intellectual destruction. The film transmits a lot of details, however Mac He was authorized to float the new backed bonds, whose buyers-including many union-protected pension funds in the event of the city’s bankruptcy by encircling the city tax revenues. In reality , Mac (Pre -quickly MacHe was enabled to manage the city’s money, leaving a ray just for his head – “free of power, and he knew that”, Farid Feriti, then TimesThe head of the city hall office remembers.
However, the city was still about to fail to pay short -term bonds. By October, the bankruptcy declaration was hours away, but the United States Federation and its president, Albert Shanker, refused to lend to the city’s money by buying bonds. Spoiler Alert: Immediately before the deadline, Shanker agreed to buy bonds after all, for fear of blame the teachers at bankruptcy, but in the wake of this excessive nail confrontation, Ford gave his fateful speech against the rescue. A decisive aspect of Ford’s final surrender, and Mac The rescue strategy was to recognize the hidden interdependence of cities, countries and countries – bankruptcy in New York had shook national and global economies. Mac The city was forced to take radical measures to reduce costs, drop more workers, close some public hospitals, and reduce a wide range of social services (from drug use treatment to library hours), and for the first time-shipping tuitions in the city university system. Federal rescue funds were granted, when it came in the end, on the condition of more painful austerity. Film makers concluded that although the city has been withdrawn from the edge of the disaster, it was categorically changed to the worse.
The joy of “Drop Dead City” is that it is a symphony of sounds, in the past and present. Film interviews, even rhyme, with archive clips documenting events while they are exposed, participants are discussing their activities at the present time, and news reports that have been broadcast at the time. The advanced analysis of the law and financing, the hard practical application of the retail policy, and LILTAY is one of the interviews by the person in the street converges in the soundtrack and is reflected in the images that are modest but continuously continuously-to the integral but the faithful. The most move is not the fact that the film shows the catastrophe that is avoided but gives a sound to fully express the ideas and principles that made the city into trouble in the first place-the example of liberal government.
This ideal was created early in “Drop Dead City”, with a variety of New York participants in the 1960s and early 1970s. “There was a great deal of interest in the people who were excluded and were not taken care of,” says Pittsi Gottalum, who worked in education for both Pim and his predecessor, John Lindsay. Berger says that the strength of the municipal unions means that the city’s workers can gain enough to become homeowners. Donna Shala, a professor of political science who worked for her MacIt is remembered that the general university system in New York City was free of tuition-only American city to this matter. Louis Goldfank, a pioneer in emergency medicine, talks about how he attracted him to New York because he saw in the hospital system an opportunity to fulfill his vision of free and free health care.
The skin throws the film as the main driver of charitable rule is Nelson Rockefeller, a liberal Republican (the strain was not uncommon at the time) that was the governor of the state from 1959 to 1973. According to Burragh, Rockefeller’s projects at the city’s expenses caused more than three times from 1963 to 1973. Ferretti is frankly released by Rockefeller “the godfather of the nightmare”. If Rockefeller’s methods were unhappy, his principles were great – in contrast, for example, with William Simon’s position, Ford Treasury Secretary, who publicly expressed hope that the crisis will change “our positions on the right role of the government in our society.” The image of Rockefeller as bluishing is outside the touch, its Putri’s motivation to help the average man does not explain at least the financial facts, at least make him seem more attractive than Bluetocrats (then and now) who are alert to financial reality but unaware or indifferent to the needs of ordinary people.
