The Rough NYC Streets In 1970 — A Bridge Over Troubled Waters
I made this movie back in early 1970 to raise money for a Jewish philanthropy in New York City. It captures the challenges people were having at that time. So many of my subscribers on this channel have asked to see it that I am posting the entire film. I got permission directly from Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel to use their just-released Bridge Over Troubled Waters song in the film. Many subscribers comment that the situation in New York City is even worse today than it was back in 1970 when I hit the streets to shoot this scene. I was carrying a 49 pounds 16mm camera with the soundman by my side. We went to Washington Sq., Park in Greenwich Village near NYU. There were homeless people in that area and in the nearby Lower East Side just as there are today. At that time, there were “mental hospitals” where tens of thousands of people were put/housed who suffered with mental illness and drug addiction etc. During the Reagan administration, these hospitals were closed and the people were put on the streets. So back at that time, many of the people we came across who were homeless were teenagers or people in their early 20s who had become “runaways” — running away from horrible parental situations. I was unprepared when doing my interview with this group of runaways what the gentleman would say when he described driving a car and having an accident where his parents and his wife and his child were killed (there were no seatbelts at that time) while he was essentially uninjured. He asked me what I would do and I could not answer that I would not be in exactly the situation he was in.
Some commentators believe that the long haired young man with the scar is the person who the small blonde woman described she slashed with a knife. He was not that person. He was her friend and helping her protect her from the really bad people that preyed on these people not only in New York City but in every major American city then, and I suspect… today as well.
