DROP DEAD CITY (2024) Produced & Directed by Michael Rohatyn & Peter Yost / Cinematographer: Jerry Risius / Editors: Anna Auster & Don Kleszy / Talking Heads: Charles Rangel, Donna Shalala, Herb Elish, Howard Rubinstein, David Dinkins, Fred Ferretti, and Harry Goldin. USA / Not Rated / 108 mins.
The post-opening-credits sequence plants us, appropriately enough, in the front seat of a rickety wooden roller coaster, taking the first of many steep plunges as talk of Mayor Abraham Beame plays underneath. An elfin Judge Joseph Wapner type (minus the snarl), Abe Beame spent 23 years in city government before being elected mayor of New York in January 1974. According to the late Charles Rangel, Beam not only failed to look or act the part of a crusading politician, he was also an uninspired and uninspiring public speaker. (How funny that a mayor named Beame couldn’t support a city?) At the time, most of the money the city had to feed off came from the sale of city bonds. With $324.900,000 to siphon, reps from every bank in town gathered together for a competitive bid sale to — in the words of New York Times City Hall Bureau Chief Fred Ferretti — “whack it up.” The following year, New York, New York, the city so nice they named it twice, filed for bankruptcy. How was this allowed to happen? Michael Rohatyn and Peter Yost’s blistering Drop Dead City holds the keys to that dark period when the city that never sleeps suddenly went full narcoleptic. The title comes from President Gerald Ford’s refusal of New York's request for a loan to bail the city out. The next day’s legendary Daily News headline screamed "Ford to City: Drop Dead." Ford later approved federal support for New York, but it was too late. It wasn’t the falls Ford took, or the various golfing accidents that did him in, but that single headline that cost him the reelection.
Epilogue: Since the last bond was paid off in 2008, budgets have remained consistently balanced. ***
Starts Friday, May 6 at the Digital Gym.
.
DROP DEAD CITY (2024) Produced & Directed by Michael Rohatyn & Peter Yost / Cinematographer: Jerry Risius / Editors: Anna Auster & Don Kleszy / Talking Heads: Charles Rangel, Donna Shalala, Herb Elish, Howard Rubinstein, David Dinkins, Fred Ferretti, and Harry Goldin. USA / Not Rated / 108 mins.
The post-opening-credits sequence plants us, appropriately enough, in the front seat of a rickety wooden roller coaster, taking the first of many steep plunges as talk of Mayor Abraham Beame plays underneath. An elfin Judge Joseph Wapner type (minus the snarl), Abe Beame spent 23 years in city government before being elected mayor of New York in January 1974. According to the late Charles Rangel, Beam not only failed to look or act the part of a crusading politician, he was also an uninspired and uninspiring public speaker. (How funny that a mayor named Beame couldn’t support a city?) At the time, most of the money the city had to feed off came from the sale of city bonds. With $324.900,000 to siphon, reps from every bank in town gathered together for a competitive bid sale to — in the words of New York Times City Hall Bureau Chief Fred Ferretti — “whack it up.” The following year, New York, New York, the city so nice they named it twice, filed for bankruptcy. How was this allowed to happen? Michael Rohatyn and Peter Yost’s blistering Drop Dead City holds the keys to that dark period when the city that never sleeps suddenly went full narcoleptic. The title comes from President Gerald Ford’s refusal of New York's request for a loan to bail the city out. The next day’s legendary Daily News headline screamed "Ford to City: Drop Dead." Ford later approved federal support for New York, but it was too late. It wasn’t the falls Ford took, or the various golfing accidents that did him in, but that single headline that cost him the reelection.
Epilogue: Since the last bond was paid off in 2008, budgets have remained consistently balanced. ***
Starts Friday, May 6 at the Digital Gym.
.