David Simon’s TV series follows the fight against social housing in 1980s Yonkers, New York – but, as Kevin Baker reveals, it’s just the tip of the iceberg of the sordid American history of kicking black people out of their neighborhoods Show Me a Hero, David Simon’s TV adaptation of Lisa Belkin’s book of the same name, takes an unsparing look at one of the most corrosive issues in American life: the question of how we learn, literally, to live with each other. Simon and co-writer William F. Zorzi do this brilliantly, which should be no surprise. Their previous collaboration, The Read More

“Stay away from New York City if you possibly can” was the stark warning that greeted visitors 40 summers ago — courtesy of a mysterious “survival guide” that symbolizes one of the weirdest, most turbulent eras in the city’s history Travellers arriving at New York City’s airports in June 1975 were greeted with possibly the strangest object ever handed out at the portal to a great city: pamphlets with a hooded death’s head on the cover, warning them, “Until things change, stay away from New York City if you possibly can.” “Welcome to Fear City” read the stark headline on these pamphlets, Read More