The years 1986 to 1989 were quite formative for me: I was a kid becoming more aware of the wider world, I was switching schools between elementary and middle, I was doing The Nutcracker and other ballets at Lincoln Center -- and NYC was in tumult.
Crack, crime, corruption, and big personalities ruled the town -- Ed Koch, Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump and others were in the news every day ... and even though Koch is long days, the others still (obviously) haunt us.
This moment in time is the subject of a new book by Jonathan Mahler called Gods of New York. Mahler wrote the classic early-aughts book Ladies and Gentleman the Bronx is Burning and he is a great NYC historian.
You should listen to this great conversations between Mahler and Chuck Todd about how late 1980s NYC seems to be more relevant than ever in 2020s America.
And while yours truly wasn't a "God" of New York at that time, I was, in a way, a very minor princeling.
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