Gordon Davis’s Urban Park Rangers “set a tone” to persuade New Yorkers to treat their parks, and by extension each other, with the respect they’d convinced themselves was undeserved, not their responsibility, maybe even uncool.
(NYC Parks Photo Archive)
To William “Holly” Whyte, fixing Bryant Park—and New York—meant letting New Yorkers do what they knew how to do, and inviting in more people to do it.
(Alex Gotfryd/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)
Reporter Charles Osgood called Keith Haring’s subway drawings “Art for the people, all for the price of a subway token.”
(Laura Levine/Corbis via Getty Images)
Diana Vreeland enters the Met’s La Belle Epoque show in 1982, on the arm of Pierre Cardin. “A little bad taste is like a nice splash of paprika…,” she once said, lighting another Lucky. “No taste is what I’m against.”
(Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images)
“All power,” wrote the fiery AIDS activist Larry Kramer, “is the willingness to accept responsibility.”
(Catherine McGann/Getty Images)
During his years as mayor, crime dropped, Disney came to Times Square, and both the Hi-Tech and Brooklyn emerged as new frontiers, yet David Dinkins’s few significant wins never cohered as a legacy.
(AP Photo/Ron Frehm)
“I learned before I got out of the maternity ward,” said Rev. Al Sharpton, “that you’ve got to holler like hell sometimes to get what you want.”
(Francis Specker/Alamy Stock Photo)
Cora Cahan, Rebecca Robertson, and Gretchen Dykstra, along with Marian Heiskell, remade Times Square with “ a mixture of new and old, razzle-dazzle, amazing entertainment, and crowds, crowds.”
(Chang W. Lee/The New York Times/Redux)
Rudy Giuliani announced the coming of Reformation New York from the steps of City Hall with his eight-year-old son at his side. Inspiring, hopeful, tinged with autocracy and undercut by some public acting out, Rudy’s first day hinted at the eight years to come
(AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
Wade Boggs celebrated the Yankees 23rd World Series title with an impromptu ride on a police horse. As Michael Tomasky wrote, “Yankees. Rudy. Crime down. New York better.”
(AP Photo/Ron Frehm)
A product of the Queensbridge Houses, Nas took Hip Hop to a new level with his album Illmatic.
(Mika-Photography.com)
With the support of Condé Nast publisher Si Newhouse, Anna Wintour, editor of Vogue, became New York’s ultimate arbiter of style.
(Richard Corkery/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)
Polish émigré and Bronx Science alum Daniel Libeskind presents his concept for Ground Zero, with Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Governor George Pataki.
(Allan Tannenbaum/Getty Images)
A sort of “makeshift village” in the Financial District, Occupy Wall Street inspired a global movement, even if it didn’t change much in New York City.
(Uschi Gerschner/Alamy Stock Photo)