Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning: 1977, Baseball, Politics, and the Battle for the Soul of a City

There was a Science Fiction movie that came out around 1981 called “Escape From New York”. That movie was set in the future, and the premise was that the entire city of New York had recently been converted to a maximum security prison. The entire city. Although they never state so in the movie, the implication is that New York was getting so bad over the years, that it probably made more sense to just “give up” then try to rebuild and revamp the dangerously chaotic city.Fortunately, time has shown us that the legendary five boroughs did, in fact, improve and are in much better shape than they were half a century ago. If you lived in New York City in 1977, however, odds are you weren’t optimistic that such an outcome could have been possible. What this books sets out to do is tell some of the stories/current events that occupied the front pages of the New York newspapers, and show us just how awfully messy things really were.Ironically, the fact that the author is tackling so many different narratives of the particular time and place into one book actually ends up doing more harm than good. This book jumps around from narrative to narrative too jarringly. Our main areas of focus here consists of the New York Yankees World Series baseball team of 1977, the race for Mayor during the same year, the infamous catastrophic 24-hour blackout that occurred during the triple digit heat during August, and the scary “Son of Sam” murders that were occurring right in the middle of all of these events.The author himself states that he set out to only cover the Yankees tumultuous year for this book, but he ended up branching out and telling these other stories as well. He really should have stuck with his original intention. This is where the book is the best. For those who are familiar with the Yankees during this time period know that they were loved by some, hated by most, and the headlines were dominated by Billy Martin, George Steinbrenner, and multi-million dollar athlete (there weren’t many of these back then) Reggie Jackson. This is where the book shines the brightest, and the team of this particular year does warrant its own separate narrative with all of its colorful bickering personalities.Well, maybe the author didn’t have enough material, so he switches back and forth with the above mentioned events. Yes, the race for mayor was quite interesting; especially since the city seemed to be such a malodorous mismanaged cesspool, but it simply isn’t as captivating reading about such figures as Ed Koch and Mario Cuomo as it is reading about Thurman Munson and Catfish Hunter.The other two topics, the blackout and the Son of Sam murders, really feel forcibly interjected here. Especially the latter. The blackout adds a good touch to the depressing narrative since the true ugly colors of the despondent city is made sadly apparent when the masses hit their breaking point. They managed to use the temporary tragedy to wreck havoc on their home city, and literally tried to burn up the Bronx. Still, though, this section of the book is kind of “thrown in” to the overall narrative and, at times, we feel like we’re simply watching a very long commercial that’s interrupting our main narrative. Again, this incident could have warranted its own book, although it would have been a very depressing one.So I really wish the author could do a “do over” and rewrite this book that only focuses on the 1977 New York Yankees. He could have done so, and still interjected these other three narratives within the book in smaller chunks and given us a much more entertaining story.The author is a very gifted writer and he really does capture the reader’s attention as he relives the time very well with his prose. I just wished he would have written only one book within this one book instead of four.

Loved the intermix of Yankees drama, the mayoral race, the hunt for the Son of Sam, and the blackout. Fascinating and well written. Wonderful for sports and history buffs.

A readable, well-researched account of NYC in 1977, a year that NYC would probably rather forget. 1977: the year George Steinbrenner, Billy Martin, and Reggie Jackson kept sportswriters working overtime covering their many public disputes. The year a catastrophic power outage led to deadly riots and looting, destroying whole NYC neighborhoods. The year Studio 54 became a disco legend; SoHo, a quirky little artist community, was “discovered” (and arguably destroyed) by gentrification; and gays sunned themselves on abandoned peers, oblivious to the coming apocalypse of AIDS. The year Times Square gained notoriety not for its Broadway shows, but for its burgeoning, almost wholly unregulated porn industry. The year an obscure Australian media tycoon, Rupert Murdoch, bought the New York Post, marking the beginning of the Tabloid Era. The year rowdy Yankees fans regularly threw garbage on the field when they weren’t shouting obscenities at opposing teams or raining stale beer down on the heads of the patrons seated beneath them. The year a mysterious serial killer, dubbed Son of Sam, eluded a task force that at one point grew to include over 700 police officers. The year urban blight and housing projects created neighborhoods so bereft of hope, people torched their own unsellable houses for the insurance money. The year 3 living, breathing caricatures – Bella Abzug, Mario Cuomo and Abe Beame – battled for the right to run a city that was literally going up in smoke. The year NYC’s liberal legacy (rent-controlled apartments, generous municipal salaries and pensions, free higher education), already stretched and strained, finally broke. The year one of the greatest cities in the world skidded into fiscal chaos and officially declared bankruptcy.In other words, Mahler has plenty of material to cover! And so he does, in the form of 67 brief, breezy, detail-filled chapters, replete with authentic eyewitness accounts and seeped in ‘70s “vibe”. Indeed, the narrative is so engaging and readable, I ended up enjoying parts of this I expected merely to endure. (Accounts of political campaigns and labor strikes not being my usually my cup of tea.)Like many folks my age, I’ve spent much of my life trying to forget that I lived through this turbulent decade in America’s history. Yes, Mahler’s narrative serves as an unstinting, unapologetic reminder of everything that was awful about the 70s. But it also forced me to appreciate the remarkable adaptability and resiliency of American culture. Sure, we’ve faced challenges as a nation – poverty, racism, bigotry, violence, really bad music – but even in the depths of despair, our hope never completely fails, our empathy never entirely falters, our ingenuity endures, and we keeping finding ways to triumph over the forces of greed, intolerance, and general boorishness. A lesson I’m trying to take to heart as our country once against finds itself struggling to rise above our old, familiar demons.

history. crime, baseballReggie, George and Billy at their Best/worst .Son of Sam well covered.New York ambience....well written

My only regret, is that the book didn't end on August 3rd 1979, the day we were informed that the captain had tragically died in a plane crash. For those of us that were there, in New York during that special time in history that was the late 70's, the death of Thurman Munson was as much an end of an era as game 6 of the '77 World Series was to the crazy year of 1977. In fact, when the Thurman died, the Yankees wouldn't win another title for 17 years, an eternity for Yankee fans. And the craziness of the 70's, even though it wasn't sensationalized like in '77, was still strong in '78 and '79. There is a reason the stadium and the team were nicknamed The Bronx Zoo. '78 was one of the most entertaining years in baseball history, included a legendary pennant race that came down to a one-game playoff in Fenway, feature Mike Torrez pitching FOR the Red Sox, Bucky Dent over the Monster, The Boston Massacre, and Ron Guidry being robbed of the MVP by infamous Red Sox a****** Jim Rice. And Thurman was a big part of that of this chapter in New York's history.The book was about the crazy year of 1977, and it pretty much nailed it. We really didn't need another 120 pages about 1978. But somehow it felt incomplete not having just an epilogue detailing the day that the era truly ended.

Though one of its subjects is baseball you don't have to know or like baseball to apprecaite this wonderful book. The author takes us on a trip of New York City starting around 1973 and climaxing in 1977- a summer where the city was ravaged by a blackout and looting, a serial killer named the son of sam, poltical fighting, newspapers vying for the best headlines and a confrontation between Reggie Jackson and his coach with the Yankees.Again if you don't know or like baseball it's easy to skip these chapters, and just concentrate on the other subjects.A very well written book.

An enjoyable book about New York, weaving baseball, the mayoral race, the city blackout and subsequent looting in some poorer parts of NY and the Son of Sam killings all in 1977, page turning social history at it's best.

A cannot put down book, interweaving the mayoral politics, the baseball (Yankees), and the riots of 1977, in a city one cannot help but admire. Superbly and colourfully written the book is a snapshot of an tumultuous year.

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Great book about my favorite city, US sport and politics. Beautifully woven together.