The gritty 1970s photographs that capture New York when it was a city in decline as crime soared and hundreds of thousands of its inhabitants fled to the suburbs

The 1970s are considered a low point for New York City.


More than 820,00 people fled the crime and an unreliable transit system over the course of the decade, moving to the suburbs the suburbs.

The city went nearly bankrupt as Wall Street sputtered under the economic stagnation of the era.



Down time: The economy in New York City sputtered to a halt in the 1970s, leaving tens of thousands without work. These men were seen napping on a stoop on 30th Street in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood





Down time: This man waits for nothing in particular as he drinks a beer in the Bowery in Manhattan





Down and out: This man was seen sleeping in the middle of the median with his old dog in the Bowery







Photographer Leland Bobbe captured the gritty, sometimes desperate nature of the men who women who populated New York in the 1970s.

Pimps and prostitutes populated Times Square. Drug dealers worked openly.







Buildings went vacant and became home to squatters as they became dilapidated.

The subway became unreliable and dangerous. Muggings and rapes were reported on trains and in the dark tunnels underground.




Bums: The Bowery became a haunt for the homeless, drunkards and other men of ill-repute. It has since been transformed and includes several luxury condo developments





Homeless men became so common in the Bowery that the city became known for its 'Bowery Bums,' who camped out on the street





Ladies of the night: Prostitutes also populated the Bowery, plying their trade with johns who wandered in. Here, a man negotiates the price for a prostitute while two others walk past

The population dropped to less than 7.1million - erasing four decades of growth.

The city nearly went bankrupt. It would have, had the teachers union not agreed to invest $150million in city bonds.


President Gerald Ford in 1975 vowed to veto any bill giving New York money to bail out the city's troubled finances.

That decision resulted in the infamous New York Daily News headline: 'Ford to City: Drop Dead.'

Later, he reversed course and shelled out $2.3billion in federal funds.



Run down: The men of the Bower were largely neglected until the 1990s when the city began to clean up its homeless problems and workers made an effort to get them into shelters





The neglected denizens of the Bowery lived together in groups and scrounged what little food, drink and shelter they could





Two men are seen sleeping together on the street in the Bowery





Now hip young people live in the Bowery in newly-refurbished and re-modeled tenement houses. The Bowery no longer carries the stigma that it did in the 20th century





Protesters at the 1976 Democratic National Convention at Madison Square Garden mocked President Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon in 1974





This anti-abortion protester at the convention supported Alabama Governor George Wallace, a segregationist





In Hell's Kitchen, a man peers out of his apartment building from an old, battered window





In the Lower East Side, an old Jewish man leans on his cane at a park bench





Nap time: A man sleeps on the subway. The subway system became rife with crime as riders became the victims of rapes and robberies





A blind woman plays the accordion for tips on the subway. Train troubadours still ply their trade on the city's subway system