WHEN THE CITY THAT NEVER
SLEEPS GOT A WAKE-UP CALL
Drop Dead City is that rare beast: a documentary that turns a major city’s fiscal crisis into an edge-of-your-seat thriller. There’s a strong parallel to what’s happening in our economic and political times today, nationally and locally. It could’ve just been a wonky educational film but it is fast-paced, impossible to look away from, and very smart in the way complex budget and political issues are covered.
Headline (photo by Yost Media)
If you weren’t around in 1975, you won’t remember the outrageous headline in New York’s Daily News: “Ford to City: Drop Dead,” a reaction to President Gerald Ford’s adamant declaration that he would not use federal funds to bail out the city as it stood on the edge of loan defaults and bankruptcy. It would lead to him lose the next Presidential election (to Jimmy Carter), though he later changed course based on the unpopularity of his initial pronouncement and authorized the bailout, with strict conditions.
NYC Mayor Abe Beame, NYC, March, 1975 (NBC News Archives, Getty Images)
New York is a vast driver of America’s economic strength. And it had been a place where progressive politics were a point of pride, with free college education and health care, among many other amenities. The power and number of unions created a vibrant middle class, commanding generous wages and retirement benefits for the hundreds of thousands of municipal workers in every department, from sanitation to engineering, to fire, police and teachers.
NYC sanitation men on strike, July 1, 1975 (ABC News VideoSource)
Bankers who paid little or no attention to New York’s accounting records repeatedly created short-term bonds based on the thinnest of premises to cover the costs of all these progressive programs. As Mayor Abe Beame took office, he knew that New York was in debt, as he thought, to the tune of $2 billion dollars (the size of LA’s budget shortfall today).
Police protest, Brooklyn Bridge, NYC July 1, 1975 (ABC VideoSource)
But it turns out the city had never been audited, a closet was found filled with cancelled checks that had never been reconciled with the books, leading to the discovery that the city’s books were non-existent. Banks began turning their backs on the city when the actual debt was calculated to be more than $6 billion dollars, and began calling in their loans. That’s the equivalent of more than $11.5 billion dollars today. How do you come up with that on a quick turnaround deadline?
NYC Sanitation men's strike signs, NYC, July 1, 1975 (ABC VideoSource)
But it wasn’t just the banks: it was a time of national recession, and as the city became increasingly diverse, whites fled to the suburbs, property taxes dropped and revenues could not keep up with expenses of payrolls and ambitious programmatic commitments.
Aside from the ticking time bomb of owing billions in a matter of days and hours, the only solution Beame could implement was draconian cuts to just about everything. Trash piled up in the streets as sanitation workers refused to work without pay. Arson attacks broke out everywhere and there weren’t enough firefighters to extinguish them. Police found themselves mounting a war they couldn’t win against massive increases in crime. An era of austerity hit like giant hammer on the heads of those responsible for keeping the city running day to day.
Students and teachers protest CUNY tuition NYC summer, 1975 (ABC News VideoSource)
It’s all told in a minute-by-minute countdown of historic chronology, with archival and news footage of the disastrous consequences, the rage of the workers, along with talking head interviews with key players in city and state government, unions, and local and national experts, all trying in real time to find the compromise that would rescue the city. It is a whirlwind of drama and Realpolitik calculations that keeps viewers wondering how such a titanic disaster could possibly be averted.
NYC, trash-strewn street, 1975 (ABC News VideoSource)
Self-funded, self-distributed and directed/produced by Michael Rohatyn and Peter Yost, the film benefits from the up-close-and-personal experience of Rohatyn, whose father Felix Rohatyn, was a leading player in overseeing New York’s salvation. He knows most of the players personally and was able to get interviews that clarify in straightforward language how it all went wrong… then how it got fixed, with rival interests finally coming together to focus on a mutually beneficial solution, albeit with much pain still to come and ideals diminished.
In New York, Drop Dead City has played to sold out audiences. Featured are the likes of outspoken Harlem’s former Congressional representative Charles Rangel, former Clinton and Carter administration official Donna Shalala, developer and former politician and property developer Richard Ravitch, The New York Times‘ City Hall Bureau Chief Fred Ferretti, and many of the department and union heads who served at the time, as well as workers and “men in the street” sharing their informed perspectives.
Who’da thunk this kind of movie would so interesting? I was both surprised and pleased.
Drop Dead City
109 minutes | documentary | US | 2025 | English
now playing at IFC Film Center in NY
opens at three Laemmle Theatres in L.A. (Noho, Santa Monica and Encino) from May 22–29, 2025
for more info and nationwide screenings, visit Drop Dead City
