The quintessential 1970s NYC movie

[Razgovory]

I thought it was like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4f2ExkUzHw

[Darth Wagtaros]

I thought it was like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4f2ExkUzHw

This was my first thought.  

[PDH]

1969 film here - Midnight Cowboy.  Just the slapping of the car's hood in the crosswalk is enough to make this feel like it was real New York.

[Admiral Yi]

Any love for Fort Apache, The Bronx?  I've never seen it.  I've never seen Serpico either, unless you count the Wes Anderson version.

[Syt]

Dog Day Afternoon and it's not even close.

As a kid I spent quite a lot of time in New York City in the 1970s - one set of grandparents in Inwood (just north of Washington Heights) and another in Queens. Not just in the museums and the sites but the playgrounds and the parks and the subways.

As a kid you see things differently. New York was dirty and loud and covered and graffiti.  There was a tinge of danger. But even in that "Drop Dead" era, it wasn't the dystopian hellscape imagined in the Warriors or (by implication) in Escape From New York.  it was fun and exciting and a true melting pot of all different kinds of people thrown together.

Dog Day Afternoon with its carnival atmosphere, media frenzy and recognizable New York characters all over the screens captures the sense of the city I recall the best.

The other film worth considering is Saturday Night Fever, though not as it turns out based on a true story.

Thanks for sharing.

[Syt]

I think Manhattan is the quintessential 1970s New York City movie (though obviously a different slice of society than the rest of the poll.)  It's even got Bella Abzug in it.

I did vote for The Taking of Pelham One Two Three.  To me that's instantly recognizable as New York and the 1970s (Walter Matthau's tie alone makes that point.)  With luck I'll be helping build a radio tower near the Pelham Station.

I had an uncle who went to NYU in the 1970s.  He thought "Midnight Cowboy," was the most representative film of the era (although the film is 1969.)  There's a scene early on where there's a man lying on the ground with his hand sticking up and a crowd just walks past him; while John Voight doesn't seem to know what to do.  He said that he saw the very same thing.  He thought New York wouldn't be such a culture shock being from Detroit (and riot era Detroit at that), but he was wrong. 

Interesting, thanks for that.