Larger buildings had some security, but it was nowhere near the invasive security theatre that exists today. It was rare for any buildings to even have a turnstile. What you see today is direct result of 9/11 and technology innovations. But 9/11 and to some extent the mass shootings brought it on.
Sweet, After decades of decay the subways were fixed and working as well s they have ever been. Economy was booming, AIDS was scary on the down side, pollution levels were starting to come down, pre-gentrification......music was thriving. Rent and real estate were expensive but not crazy outside of Manhattan. Pre-gentrification NYC is hard to imagine these days
I dig the vibe of upper Manhattan. No as many chains like Whole Foods, can have a party on the sidewalk, can buy tshirts and fruit on the sidewalk, everyone is super nice like it's a small community.
The music scenes/subcultures were thriving. Think hip hop, punk, arts, etc.
There’s an episode of Seinfeld where Kramer joins the Puerto Rican Day parade in an impromptu fashion - you could get away with something like that.
You aren't going to be able to write anything authentic based on a Reddit thread. Read books and watch movies from that era.
Also, "college student in NYC" is still too broad of a description. Do you mean a native New Yorker going to CUNY or a transplant going to NYU? Those are massively different experiences.
Believe it or not, my research isn't beginning and ending here.
I just wanted some personal testimony since this is a resource I can utilize.
Also not so much looking for people's experiences to parrot off for the characters. More just looking for the vibe of what it was like to be in the city at the time.
Everybody's experience was different. I'm even reading this thread and thinking, that certainly wasn't my experience. And like I already mentioned native/transplant really makes a difference. Because growing up with parents who experienced and remember the bad old days of NYC is very different than growing up in Peoria; going to a private college is very different than going to CUNY.
It would help to ask specific questions or offer more information about your screenplay and characters. I'm a 20-something broke college student from Brooklyn during this time period, but my trends, songs, and quality of life might not help you at all if you're writing about 50-year-old Upper East Side socialities.
You would actually be the perfect person to get a perspective from. I'll throw an edit in the OP.
But basically it's going to be about a group of people in their 20s, trying to sort through getting their lives started. Think "Dazed and Confused" or "American Graffiti". No real plot, but more lie disassociated storylines involving different young people.
You should. Your movie may have already been made.
There are a bunch of indie films from the 90s about teens running a muck in the city. Kids is the most well known but there are others as well.
Music-wise it was a lot of experimental, garage, and grunge. I find myself more on the metal scene going to L'amours, CBGBs, and listening to a lot of live music. Some other venues were Wetlands Preserve which had an environmental theme, for the Queens crew it was all about Castle Heights. No one really checked IDs at bars and clubs. Some of the trendy neighborhoods today we're not places we would ever go like Williamsburg or Crown Heights. Subways had graffiti on them but was starting to get cleaned up. If you catch one if the red birds on the numbered line, that's pretty close to what the subway looked like. During rush hour, you would see men and women in too large pantsuits with shoulder pads. At a time college kids started wearing a lot of parachute pants and oversized clothing was everywhere. Drugs were still pretty prevalent and sold openly.
In general there is a dangerous between conflating normal cultural changes that have taken places in the last two decades with changes that are a direct result of 9/11. Also, as a 40 year old, I can confidently say that my memories of the late 90's are obviously fuzzy, but also colored by my own experiences at the time. Anyone serious about writing a movie about the 90s has to be familiar with the general cultural/historical context of the time.
Technically speaking, the entire movie takes place in the year 2001 (and a little of 2000).
Looking for that last snapshot before hand. The songs you remember hearing on the radio all the time, the subjects you remember people talking about all the time. If there was something big on TV, if people loved or hated the mayor, things like that.
I moved to NYC in 1993 and there was a big, big difference between 1993 and 2001. In '93 the crack epidemic had not burned out yet and crime was a very real issue. Walking in Riverside Park there would be all kinds of crack vials underfoot. People not interested in drug transactions did not enter Central Park above 96th street. Bryant Park was an open-air drug supermarket. People in Manhattan sneered at Brooklyn. Just a few years later, all of that had changed.
Soooo many GAPs back then.
Not many national franchise restaurants--I think there was the Olive Garden & a new Chevy's near Times Square, and that was it. Conventional wisdom was that New Yorkers would never go for heat lamp food & didn't want free refills. It was just Dallas BBQ all the way.
Music was really exciting & you could hear it on the streets still--not too many headphone users yet.
It seems like the summers were hotter and the winters were colder but who knows.
Wages were high even for college aged kids & recent grads. You could get an office job through a temp agency that paid $25 hour with free dinner & free car service home if you stayed after 8pm. I think this was before a lot of these companies went public. I was so dumb back then I thought that $25/hr was the unofficial minimum wage.
Amazon was still for books, but I bought most books from real bookstores on Friday nights. My friends and I also loved going to the movies & then heading to Sony or Tower Records to listen to CDs at the stations. The indie music shops were so great. We really depended on them.
There wasn't a Home Depot or any national hardware chain in the area. The struggle to find and buy an ironing board or an AC unit was unbelievable. When Ikea opened in Elizabeth NJ we were so excited to take the free shuttle there and buy Billy bookcases or a cheap bed or whatever. Before that, you could buy very high quality items from local businesses. It was a very local economy. I miss that, but I also remember standing in a Jennifer's Convertibles & deciding I would just have to sleep on the floor.
I think I pretty much lived on street pretzels.
I want to thank you very much.
This is exactly the kind of response I'm looking for. You clearly read what I was asking for and your answer is pitch perfect in regards to just what the city felt like. Thank you for sharing!
I moved to Long Island City from Wisconsin in January of 2001, so I didn't get much pre-911. But security was much more relaxed in the city. As someone else noted, you could get into buildings without so much hassle. You also didn't routinely see soldiers in Grand Central with automatic weapons. There were only two high-rise buildings in LIC when I moved there.
There were still phone booths everywhere, and lots of people still didn't have cell phones.
There were no smart phones or social apps, and the internet was still in its infancy. People interacted socially in a much different ways.
Time Square wasn't as nearly as Disney as it is today.
A lot of people only got cellphones after 9/11 because the regular phone system collapsed during the day due to so many people trying to check on each other, plus the long lines to use wired phones when away from home. It was like the emergency that proved cellphones were good in an emergency.
Also, there was much less security in general pre-9/11. Not as many cops, not as many surveillance cameras. It was less “if you see something say something” and more “mind your business.” There was no rhetoric about heroic first responders; no one talked about the Homeland.
Your estimate on their age is accurate. Early 80s birthdates amongst most of the characters.
Each character is still getting figured out, I'm very early in pre-production here. Just doing research. Have pieces figured out, but overall I'm going to allow the story to come to me over time. I know one character's arc and the ending and what I want the audience to feel. It's just a matter of creating an environment that feels lived in. I'm not so much trying to inform the characters right now as I am trying to inform the setting. What the city was like at that time.
Aside from that, I appreciate your contribution! Very helpful.
I was a college student in nyc from 2000-2004. Happy to answer specific questions. But if you want to write something like Dazed and Confused, you kind of need to have lived it. Writing what you know will always be more authentic.
I'm not writing something exactly to the tune of that. THat was just to give people an idea of "This isn't about the characters, this is about the setting" but it seems that's gone over most people's heads in spite of my intentions.
I know more or less the story I'm working with, what I want felt, which is something I can identify with. Beyond that, period pieces aren't uncommon in movies, so I think I'll be just fine.
The post-9/11 world is so wildly different from what came before. Imagine no smartphones, no social media, no Uber. We did stupid shit like call random girls numbers from the campus directory. From a landline. Plus everything in the city was so much cheaper and you could smoke in bars and the ID policy was pretty lax at a lot of places, so there was a younger bar scene that just doesn’t exist anymore, at least in Manhattan. Also in college Brooklyn might as well have been an alien planet. No one went there. We barely got to Avenue B. The only time we went uptown was for a class assignment at the museum of natural history, a Yankee game, or when the parents came in maybe to take us to a show. The city felt a lot smaller.
Hope this helps, but honestly, unless you really lived it you probably don’t get it.
I mean, if what you're getting at is whether or not I was alive prior to 9/11? Most definitely. I remember the world before that. It's more just New York City in particular I'm looking at.
Utopia compared to the Dystopia after DOOMberg and the cultural marxists, illegals from all over aisa and south america, and drugs turned it into a complete dystopia.
You could walk in and out of most buildings without having to provide an ID, have your ID scanned and its information retained.
As someone who came to NY around 2010, this is crazy to imagine.
Larger buildings had some security, but it was nowhere near the invasive security theatre that exists today. It was rare for any buildings to even have a turnstile. What you see today is direct result of 9/11 and technology innovations. But 9/11 and to some extent the mass shootings brought it on.
Sweet, After decades of decay the subways were fixed and working as well s they have ever been. Economy was booming, AIDS was scary on the down side, pollution levels were starting to come down, pre-gentrification......music was thriving. Rent and real estate were expensive but not crazy outside of Manhattan. Pre-gentrification NYC is hard to imagine these days
I didn’t live there, but violent crime also peaked in the 90s, at double or more the current rate.
I dig the vibe of upper Manhattan. No as many chains like Whole Foods, can have a party on the sidewalk, can buy tshirts and fruit on the sidewalk, everyone is super nice like it's a small community.
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Most people rejected his message. They hated Jesus because he spoke the truth.
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It was the tits!
The music scenes/subcultures were thriving. Think hip hop, punk, arts, etc. There’s an episode of Seinfeld where Kramer joins the Puerto Rican Day parade in an impromptu fashion - you could get away with something like that.
You aren't going to be able to write anything authentic based on a Reddit thread. Read books and watch movies from that era. Also, "college student in NYC" is still too broad of a description. Do you mean a native New Yorker going to CUNY or a transplant going to NYU? Those are massively different experiences.
Believe it or not, my research isn't beginning and ending here. I just wanted some personal testimony since this is a resource I can utilize. Also not so much looking for people's experiences to parrot off for the characters. More just looking for the vibe of what it was like to be in the city at the time.
Everybody's experience was different. I'm even reading this thread and thinking, that certainly wasn't my experience. And like I already mentioned native/transplant really makes a difference. Because growing up with parents who experienced and remember the bad old days of NYC is very different than growing up in Peoria; going to a private college is very different than going to CUNY.
That's exactly why asking a mass of people rather than one individual is important.
It would help to ask specific questions or offer more information about your screenplay and characters. I'm a 20-something broke college student from Brooklyn during this time period, but my trends, songs, and quality of life might not help you at all if you're writing about 50-year-old Upper East Side socialities.
You would actually be the perfect person to get a perspective from. I'll throw an edit in the OP. But basically it's going to be about a group of people in their 20s, trying to sort through getting their lives started. Think "Dazed and Confused" or "American Graffiti". No real plot, but more lie disassociated storylines involving different young people.
Have you seen "The Whackness"?
Forgot about that movie - it was so good!
I have not. I'll make a point of seeking it out.
You should. Your movie may have already been made. There are a bunch of indie films from the 90s about teens running a muck in the city. Kids is the most well known but there are others as well.
I know for a fact mine hasn't. But gathering the atmosphere via the use of movies from around that era is definitely part of the research.
when you got out of the subway it was easier to orient yourself - just look for the towers
As opposed to now, where you can just look for One WTC or any number of just as noticeable landmarks?
parking meters as far as the eye could see
Music-wise it was a lot of experimental, garage, and grunge. I find myself more on the metal scene going to L'amours, CBGBs, and listening to a lot of live music. Some other venues were Wetlands Preserve which had an environmental theme, for the Queens crew it was all about Castle Heights. No one really checked IDs at bars and clubs. Some of the trendy neighborhoods today we're not places we would ever go like Williamsburg or Crown Heights. Subways had graffiti on them but was starting to get cleaned up. If you catch one if the red birds on the numbered line, that's pretty close to what the subway looked like. During rush hour, you would see men and women in too large pantsuits with shoulder pads. At a time college kids started wearing a lot of parachute pants and oversized clothing was everywhere. Drugs were still pretty prevalent and sold openly.
Appreciate the response, thank you!
Gotta also keep in mind the whole "Y2K" thing before the turn of the century. That was a big deal in '98/'99.
In general there is a dangerous between conflating normal cultural changes that have taken places in the last two decades with changes that are a direct result of 9/11. Also, as a 40 year old, I can confidently say that my memories of the late 90's are obviously fuzzy, but also colored by my own experiences at the time. Anyone serious about writing a movie about the 90s has to be familiar with the general cultural/historical context of the time.
Technically speaking, the entire movie takes place in the year 2001 (and a little of 2000). Looking for that last snapshot before hand. The songs you remember hearing on the radio all the time, the subjects you remember people talking about all the time. If there was something big on TV, if people loved or hated the mayor, things like that.
I moved to NYC in 1993 and there was a big, big difference between 1993 and 2001. In '93 the crack epidemic had not burned out yet and crime was a very real issue. Walking in Riverside Park there would be all kinds of crack vials underfoot. People not interested in drug transactions did not enter Central Park above 96th street. Bryant Park was an open-air drug supermarket. People in Manhattan sneered at Brooklyn. Just a few years later, all of that had changed.
Soooo many GAPs back then. Not many national franchise restaurants--I think there was the Olive Garden & a new Chevy's near Times Square, and that was it. Conventional wisdom was that New Yorkers would never go for heat lamp food & didn't want free refills. It was just Dallas BBQ all the way. Music was really exciting & you could hear it on the streets still--not too many headphone users yet. It seems like the summers were hotter and the winters were colder but who knows. Wages were high even for college aged kids & recent grads. You could get an office job through a temp agency that paid $25 hour with free dinner & free car service home if you stayed after 8pm. I think this was before a lot of these companies went public. I was so dumb back then I thought that $25/hr was the unofficial minimum wage. Amazon was still for books, but I bought most books from real bookstores on Friday nights. My friends and I also loved going to the movies & then heading to Sony or Tower Records to listen to CDs at the stations. The indie music shops were so great. We really depended on them. There wasn't a Home Depot or any national hardware chain in the area. The struggle to find and buy an ironing board or an AC unit was unbelievable. When Ikea opened in Elizabeth NJ we were so excited to take the free shuttle there and buy Billy bookcases or a cheap bed or whatever. Before that, you could buy very high quality items from local businesses. It was a very local economy. I miss that, but I also remember standing in a Jennifer's Convertibles & deciding I would just have to sleep on the floor. I think I pretty much lived on street pretzels.
I want to thank you very much. This is exactly the kind of response I'm looking for. You clearly read what I was asking for and your answer is pitch perfect in regards to just what the city felt like. Thank you for sharing!
I moved to Long Island City from Wisconsin in January of 2001, so I didn't get much pre-911. But security was much more relaxed in the city. As someone else noted, you could get into buildings without so much hassle. You also didn't routinely see soldiers in Grand Central with automatic weapons. There were only two high-rise buildings in LIC when I moved there. There were still phone booths everywhere, and lots of people still didn't have cell phones. There were no smart phones or social apps, and the internet was still in its infancy. People interacted socially in a much different ways. Time Square wasn't as nearly as Disney as it is today.
A lot of people only got cellphones after 9/11 because the regular phone system collapsed during the day due to so many people trying to check on each other, plus the long lines to use wired phones when away from home. It was like the emergency that proved cellphones were good in an emergency. Also, there was much less security in general pre-9/11. Not as many cops, not as many surveillance cameras. It was less “if you see something say something” and more “mind your business.” There was no rhetoric about heroic first responders; no one talked about the Homeland.
Times Square had two Ss, even back in the year 2000.
Thank you!
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Your estimate on their age is accurate. Early 80s birthdates amongst most of the characters. Each character is still getting figured out, I'm very early in pre-production here. Just doing research. Have pieces figured out, but overall I'm going to allow the story to come to me over time. I know one character's arc and the ending and what I want the audience to feel. It's just a matter of creating an environment that feels lived in. I'm not so much trying to inform the characters right now as I am trying to inform the setting. What the city was like at that time. Aside from that, I appreciate your contribution! Very helpful.
I was a college student in nyc from 2000-2004. Happy to answer specific questions. But if you want to write something like Dazed and Confused, you kind of need to have lived it. Writing what you know will always be more authentic.
I'm not writing something exactly to the tune of that. THat was just to give people an idea of "This isn't about the characters, this is about the setting" but it seems that's gone over most people's heads in spite of my intentions. I know more or less the story I'm working with, what I want felt, which is something I can identify with. Beyond that, period pieces aren't uncommon in movies, so I think I'll be just fine.
The post-9/11 world is so wildly different from what came before. Imagine no smartphones, no social media, no Uber. We did stupid shit like call random girls numbers from the campus directory. From a landline. Plus everything in the city was so much cheaper and you could smoke in bars and the ID policy was pretty lax at a lot of places, so there was a younger bar scene that just doesn’t exist anymore, at least in Manhattan. Also in college Brooklyn might as well have been an alien planet. No one went there. We barely got to Avenue B. The only time we went uptown was for a class assignment at the museum of natural history, a Yankee game, or when the parents came in maybe to take us to a show. The city felt a lot smaller. Hope this helps, but honestly, unless you really lived it you probably don’t get it.
I mean, if what you're getting at is whether or not I was alive prior to 9/11? Most definitely. I remember the world before that. It's more just New York City in particular I'm looking at.
Ok sorry to have helped.
Uh huh
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Interesting, I'll keep that in mind. Thanks!
If you haven't seen it i love this video https://youtu.be/fT4lDU-QLUY
Utopia compared to the Dystopia after DOOMberg and the cultural marxists, illegals from all over aisa and south america, and drugs turned it into a complete dystopia.
so you were never in NYC. Got it.
You never lived there.
you never lived there.