The Black Madonna 23: Fear City

The 70’s was a dark time for New York. The economic recession had devastated the city’s industrial sector and in just five years it had lost over 500,000 manufacturing jobs. Unemployment soared and a million households ended up having to rely on welfare.

With the social turmoil of the 60’s having led the middle class to flee the city for the suburbs, New York was now running out of funds and was forced to make substantial budget cuts. Among the areas cut the hardest was law enforcement.

These two factors combined led to rapes and burglaries tripling, car thefts and felony assaults doubling and murders going up from 700 a year to almost 1700.

This was Fear City.