‘Drop Dead City' Review: A Gripping Look at How New York City Almost Went Bankrupt in 1975, Foreshadowing the Current Moment

'Drop Dead City' falls into a category of documentary I think of as wonkish but gripping. Produced and directed by Peter Yost and Michael Rohatyn, the film is about the financial cataclysm that hit New York City in 1975, when the powers that be figured out that the city was $6 billion in debt. There was no money to pay anyone: firefighters, cops, teachers, sanitation workers. The city walked right up to the edge of bankruptcy. (That's not an overstatement.) Had New York City been anything but New York City — had it been a business, a family, or even another city — it likely would have declared bankruptcy. But after a prolonged logistical-ideological war about what to do, the city was deemed too big to fail (even though it had failed, and to a shocking degree).
The film's title refers to the infamous New York Daily News headline that ran on Oct. 30, 1975 ('Ford to City: Drop Dead'). President Gerald R. Ford never actually said those words, but the headline appeared after representatives of New York went to Washington to meet with the Ford administration. They asked for a federal bailout and were given the cold shoulder. There were complicated reasons for that (Ford's chief advisers, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, were two of the reasons). But it was that headline, 50 years ago, that stamped New York's financial crisis with the imprimatur of legend.
The reason I call 'Drop Dead City' wonkish is that the film isn't a seamy urban-cultural biography; it really is about the money. And the more that the movie follows the money, the more that it tells a story larger than New York — a story with direct application to today.
In the mid-to-late '70s, when New York was sunk into the torpor of potential economic ruin, the city was fabled in another way. This was the period of CBGB and Summer of Sam, when New York was famously squalid and dangerous, when whole sections of it had a bombed-out vibe of neglect. Yet in all that crumbling concrete, there were stray weeds and flowers — the artists and thrill-seekers who grooved on the funk and the fear. It became part of the mythology of the '70s that New York City was a wreck, but a fabulous wreck, an exposed nerve of a city, a sordid nexus of desperation and creativity where to exist there was to plug into the life force. Yet for too many people who weren't middle-class bohemians, the city had become hell. It was hell and it was a life force. (Just listen to Lou Reed's 'Dirty Boulevard.')
'Drop Dead City' shows us bits and pieces of that story, but it's really about the economic engine that was so rusted it had come to a standstill. And you can feel the malaise in the fluorescent bureaucratic tone of the film's archival footage, which is dominated by politicians and bankers and city officials. Seen now, this is a saga of bad ties, bad shirts, bad haircuts, bad sideburns, and bad lighting: the New York caught by the Sidney Lumet of 'Serpico' and 'Dog Day Afternoon.' And the real thing is even uglier. Yet that's part of the drama — the sight of all these government squares putting their earnest, bean-counting heads together to pull the city out of the abyss.
So why did New York nearly become a disaster area?
There was a level of fiscal irresponsibility that had gone for too many years: records stuffed into a thousand different drawers, and as for the bookkeeping…well, there was none. There were no books.
Yet financial chaos needn't equal Armageddon. The real problem, and it's one that 'Drop Dead City' places front and center yet never totally deals with the implications of, is that New York City was a generous, overflowing bastion of the liberal dream. The unions had extraordinary power, and the city's workers were notably well-paid, with job security and pensions. More than that, the city offered a wealth of services to the poor and the middle class. New York was the Ur melting pot, a city of immigrants that incarnated a densely packed East Coast version of the American Dream. New York was so liberal that even a Republican mayor, like John V. Lindsay, was, in spirit, a Democrat. The city didn't believe in less government. It believed in however much government it took to help its citizens succeed.
That's what had gone on for years, to the tune of the city spending much more money than it took in. And it all came to a head when Abe Beame was elected mayor. He was a tough, dry nut who spoke like a bulldog and stood at 5'2', but he knew, from his time as comptroller, what a wretched state the city's finances were in, and he wanted to clean them up. After recruiting the new comptroller, Harrison J. Goldin, to do an audit (Goldin is interviewed extensively in the film), the bad news came out: The city was up to the tips of its skyscrapers in debt.
What ensued was an orgy of finger-pointing and budget slashing. It was Beame's fault! No, it was the fault of the unions! The first thing Beame did was to cut construction projects (Battery Park City, the 2nd Ave. subway line), leaving construction workers high and dry. (This would have turned Archie Bunker into a Trumper.) And when the city began to lay off vast swaths of its workers (2,000 sanitation workers, 2,300 firefighters, 15,000 teachers), up to and including police officers (5,000 of them), who had never before been laid off in the history of the city, those workers reacted with a collective disbelief and outrage. How could they do this? The garbage piled up. The crime statistics spiked.
But there was no money to pay anyone.
'Drop Dead City' charts how those pivotal months of 1975, from the spring through November, when a deal was ultimately struck, unfolded like a thriller. Would New York fall off a cliff? The city had already borrowed its way into oblivion. The answer couldn't simply be…more borrowing. Beame formed a task force, the Municipal Assistance Corporation, known as Big MAC, which would try to refinance the city's debt. Big MAC was headed by the investment banker Felix G. Rohatyn, who according to the documentary proved a master politician. That one of the film's co-directors is Rohatyn's son, Michael Rohatyn, might throw that conclusion into doubt. Yet I don't think it's wrong. Felix Rohatyn was deft at bringing the different sides together, and at recognizing what was needed: a financial solution in which everyone — the unions, the state, the federal government — had skin in the game.
'Drop Dead City' captures how there was a staggering contradiction at the heart of New York City in the middle of the 20th century. It was going to help its workers and residents, even if it couldn't afford to do so. That sounds noble but raises the issue: How is that sustainable? And there's a way that the documentary very much doesn't want to go there. Gerald Ford never said 'drop dead,' but he did give New York the brush-off — until he didn't. The federal government came around. So did the teachers union, led by the tough nut Al Shankman, who went down to the wire refusing to offer the teachers' pension fund as a way to cover the city's bond payments — until he changed his mind. In a sense, what went on was a high-stakes game of chicken.
Yet there was an ideological war burbling underneath, all revolving around the question of what government exists to do. 'Drop Dead City' suggests that Gerald Ford lost the presidential election of 1976 because he was on the wrong side of that equation. New York's electoral votes put Jimmy Carter over the top; the film says that Ford's reprimand of New York cost him the presidency.
In hindsight, though, Jimmy Carter's presidency looks more and more like an anomaly. Ronald Reagan was elected four years later, on the promise of less government, and you don't have to be a higher mathematician to draw the line from Reagan's slashing of government to Elon Musk's chainsaw. (Reagan romantics like David Brooks of the New York Times will tell you that those are two different things; but that's part of the 'Never Trump!' conservative delusion.) 'Drop Dead City' captures how New York fell into a hole of its own devising, then made an essential correction. But it's not like this was simply a matter of bad bookkeeping. What New York's fiscal crisis revealed, for maybe the first time, was a crack in the liberal dream.
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Hamilton Spectator

8 hours ago

• Hamilton Spectator

The Rob Ford Netflix documentary is extra surreal for me. Because I'm in it

Many Torontonians are, thanks to a new Netflix documentary , reliving Rob Ford's wildly chaotic, world-headline-making years as the city's mayor and chief magistrate. Watching ' Trainwreck: Mayor of Mayhem ,' was extra surreal for me because I'm in it, among three reporters, three former mayoral staffers and two city councillors whose recollections narrate Ford's unlikely election, early mayoral success, crack-fuelled scandal and untimely death. Reactions to the doc, since it went live Tuesday, are as fascinating and varied as Torontonians' evaluations of Ford as mayor, ranging from martyred best-mayor-ever to a natural human disaster for the city. Ontario Premier Doug Ford says a new Netflix documentary about his late brother Rob Ford is "disgusting." The doc titled 'Trainwreck: Mayor of Mayhem" chronicles Rob Ford's rise to power as Toronto mayor in 2010 and his chaotic time in office. Speaking at a news conference in Toronto, Doug Ford said he wasn't going to watch the film, and he doesn't see eye-to-eye with the creators. (June 17, 2025 / The Canadian Press) In 2016, when asked about Ford's death from a rare cancer, I replied that it was a huge human tragedy for him and his family. For the city, his reign was collective trauma that would take years for all of us to work through. We're still doing the work. Some reviewers have questioned why do the doc, and why now . The reality is that Canada, where the Ford story is known, is a small part of Netflix's viewership. This is a fast-paced retelling aimed at a global audience including those who had never heard of him. Social media reactions from viewers in the U.S., England and elsewhere are versions of 'I remember a bit about this guy but the stuff in here is CRAZY, can it all even be true? And in Canada??' I sympathize because, even though I watched Ford like a hawk as the Star's city hall bureau chief, I had forgotten how many embarrassing videos surfaced before he finally went to rehab. Torontonians' reactions seem split between Ford fans who, like his brother Doug the premier, think that making a doc is 'disgusting,' those who say the filmmakers made a balanced and informative recounting, and those who say glowing tributes and missing details hide lasting damage Ford did to the city's reputation, transit, finances and more. My take is that U.K.-based director Shianne Brown and her team did a great job in the run time they had, less than 50 minutes, and within the confines of a 'Trainwreck' series focused on promising things that went horribly wrong. I can say from my window into the process that they took the challenge seriously and did exhaustive research, including three background interviews with me before I went on camera. Could the Rob Ford experience have sustained a 90-minute treatment, or longer? Absolutely. The doc doesn't mention the saga of Ford mugging my then-colleague Daniel Dale of his BlackBerry , trying to ruin Daniel's reputation with a heinous falsehood and being forced to apologize . Also missing are Ford's visits to Taste of the Danforth and the Biermarkt, as well as wandering through city hall at 2:30 a.m. with a half-drunk bottle of brandy . A friend who worked at city hall and knew Ford well told me the story is crying out for a multi-part, Scorsese-esque dramatization. Brown artfully covered the question 'What happened?' A longer run time would have allowed a look at 'Why?', and a deeper exploration of the most complicated person I have met in 36 years of reporting. The film mentions the strong influence of Doug Ford Sr., the rags-to-riches millionaire patriarch and one-term Progressive Conservative MPP who was 'tough' on the kids but sparked their ambition before his own premature cancer death. There is more to consider on that. In 2014, I examined why the Fords had no 'off switch,' no matter what came at them, by talking to Doug Ford and family friends. Doug Sr. used to call his four privileged children's unlimited potential 'the gold mine.' 'Any time he got ticked off he'd say, 'You aren't mining the gold!' ' Doug recalled. 'The gold mine, it doesn't have to be financial. You have an opportunity and take advantage of the opportunity.' In 2010 when Rob Ford launched his mayoral campaign at an Etobicoke convention hall , he choked up looking skyward and said: 'He was my idol ... I know you're with me Dad, I know you're with me.' For the 2014 story , when Rob Ford was deep in addiction and scandal, people who knew Doug Sr. and his sons told me that the father who ignited Rob's passion for politics was the only person who could have forced him to temporarily quit to get healthy — but he was gone. The documentary doesn't include the mayor captured by police surveillance drinking in the Etobicoke park named after his father. He seemed haunted by the loss of Doug Sr., the pressures of being mayor of Canada's biggest city — a job he appeared to dislike except for public appearances and helping individuals — and multiple investigations into his conduct. In the documentary, I note that Rob attempted to demonize and delegitimize media, hitting hardest those most likely to expose or criticize him, before U.S. President Donald Trump did the same. Part of the reason Ford is still important is that he was a warning that the populist ability to buffalo through any allegation, with bravado and no shame, is an incredibly powerful political weapon. Something else I felt when the documentary ended was a phantom-limb-like memory of my exhaustion trying to ensure we were keeping up with a seemingly inexhaustible mayor on an extended rampage. I was seeing my wife and young kids so little, and thinking about Ford so much, that I sought and got a nine-month fellowship — my rehab from Rob Ford — at U of T's Massey College. But on a fellowship trip to Berlin I opened a newspaper, aiming to test my high school German, only to see a front-page story headlined 'Crack-rauchen Bürgermeister' — crack-smoking mayor — and knew that I could not escape Rob Ford. Later, when I was back at work and Ford was back from rehab, my doctor sent me to a private clinic for my first routine colonoscopy. As an anesthetist prepared to put me out, the physician about to perform the procedure asked what I do for a living. When I told him, he beamed and said he knew Ford from the Muskoka addiction clinic, adding 'I like Rob!' My stomach lurched. Ford Nation folks hated the Star, and by extension me. 'But him,' the physician said, pointing at the anesthetist as the needle slid into my arm, 'he LOVES Rob Ford.' 'Oh my God,' I thought just before the lights went out, 'they're going to kill me.' Spoiler: They were completely professional and I survived. But I couldn't escape Rob Ford. I still can't, and we still can't. We're still doing the work.

USA Today

12 hours ago

• USA Today

Bryan Cranston champions Ford's new philanthropy push at revived Detroit landmark

It's midmorning June 17 and actor Bryan Cranston is in a private room deep inside Michigan Central Station seated in an overstuffed lounge chair. He leans back, smiling and welcoming the respite from the grueling 82-degree heat he'd just endured for more than an hour outside, speaking in front of hundreds of Ford Motor Co. employees, dealers and some media. Cranston, 69, isn't complaining. Heck, he isn't even sweating. The Oscar-nominated star volunteered to be in Detroit to emcee the event to kick off Ford's new philanthropy program: Ford Building Together. The program aims to better unite Ford's nationwide dealership network and employees so that they can provide more efficient relief during disasters. Ford is partnering with four charities in the new program. 'I'm here to build that community, that's what it's all about," Cranston told the Detroit Free Press, part of the USA TODAY Network, of why he supports Ford's philanthropy work. "I'm tired of the vitriol and the rancor and the finger-pointing. We're better than that. We have a variety of different opinions on religion and politics and life. But let's find the commonality. This is one of those events that finds that commonality. This is a celebration of the American spirit.' The American spirit is fitting for Ford as the company touts itself as the most American of all the automakers, often citing the statistic that 80% of the vehicles it sells in the United States, it also assembles here. That is a timely message amid President Donald Trump's trade war, which seeks to encourage more U.S.-based manufacturing. A quiet philanthropist Cranston is most famous for playing the dad in the early 2000s sitcom "Malcolm in the Middle" and more recently as playing Walter White, a chemistry teacher turned drug dealer, in the hit 2008-13 drama "Breaking Bad." In 2016, he was nominated for Best Actor for the movie "Trumbo." Despite his movie star credentials, Cranston is a dedicated philanthropist, though he said this is the first time he has talked so openly about it. "I've been involved in philanthropy for quite a while. My wife and I have a fund set up for a variety of charities," Cranston said. "It was Jane Kaczmarek, who played my wife in 'Malcom in the Middle,' who said, 'Paying back, donating time, energy and money to charities is reciprocal to our good fortune and it kind of comes with the territory.' " He has used social media to promote his involvement with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children over the years. And, even with his business endeavors, Cranston makes an effort to give back. "I'm so blessed; I'm so lucky. Why not share it?" Cranston said. "I don't know how good I'd be as a mogul, wanting to make more and more. I want to make and share, make and share. That's what we discovered when Aaron Paul (costar in 'Breaking Bad') and I started our mezcal company Dos Hombres — we have to give back to the people of Mexico. It's the right thing to do." 'You want me to show up?' Cranston's ties to Ford started years ago. The relationship has taken him from rescue work with the automaker's philanthropy arm after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in 2017, to more recently his visit to Dearborn, Michigan Truck Plant to donning a hard hat to trapse through the very building he sat in on June 17: Michigan Central Station, well before it was renovated. Cranston's famous voice — a deep, gutteral baritone — won him a contract as the voice of Ford commercials starting in October 2018 with the launch of the "Built Ford Proud" campaign, according to Ad Age. He has also voiced Ford Philanthropy promotional videos. Before that, he said he has personally bought several F-150 crew cab pickups over the years, donating them to charities to use after hurricanes to rescue people in flooded areas. As for his personal car, Cranston has been driving an all-electric Mustang Mach-E for the past few years. So when Ford told him about this new philanthropy program that partners with the American Red Cross (Cranston said he donates blood regularly), Habitat for Humanity, Feeding America and Team Rubicon, he didn't hesitate to help. "Ford said, 'Do you wanna …?' I said, 'You want me to show up?' They said, 'Will you? Really?' I said, 'Yeah, yeah.' So here I am," Cranston said. Cranston's visits to Michigan To get to Detroit on June 17, Cranston took a day and a half off from the set of his latest project, a dark comedy movie being filmed in Champaign, Illinois, called "Chili Finger." It also stars Judy Greer, Sean Astin and John Goodman. The timing is interesting, too. Cranston said it was nearly four years ago to the date when he entered "this building wearing a hard hat and a vest, stepping over puddles and fallen cables and graffiti and broken marble … it was a mess." That was in 2021 or so and Cranston said he'd come to Michigan to do research for the 2022 movie "Jerry and Marge Go Large" costarring Annette Bening based on the true story of Jerry and Marge Selbee, of Evart, Michigan, who figured out how to win the lottery. Cranston took a detour from his research to come to Detroit during that visit where he met up with friends. While in the city, he took a tour of Dearborn Truck Plant to see the F-150 pickup being made and then he made his way to Michigan Central Station. "I came here to see what Ford was doing to this and why," Cranston said. "I thought, 'Oh my gosh this is a huge undertaking.' I knew it was Bill Ford's baby and people thought he was a little crazy to do this and look at it now. It's gorgeous.' Executive Chair Bill Ford was on FOX News Channel's "FOX & Friends" the morning of June 17 talking to co-host Steve Doocy about the long-standing desire to repair the train station. "It had become a mecca for drug dealers and everything else. I drove by it almost every day and often, what happened was, there were stories, national stories about the decay of Detroit ... and this was often the visual," Ford said of the train station. Ford spent close to $1 billion to renovate the old train depot, which now holds shops, offices and soon, a luxury hotel. Since it opened to the public in June 2024, Ford said it has had about 300,000 visitors. On June 2, NoMad Hotels, an upscale boutique brand affiliated with Hilton and featuring a bourgeois-bohemian flair, said it plans to open an approximately 180-room hotel on the top floors of Michigan Central Station in the first half of 2027. Cranston's take on Detroit sports Cranston glances around at the marble walls. The sunlight pierces through the skylights illuminating the once downtrodden train depot. He is aware the building reflects the Motor City, a place he calls a "great town" that he visits often. "I'm really, really happy to see it come back," Cranston said. "There were times when I was here, where it was almost like a ghost town and to see that urban renewal is really rewarding.' Cranston has a couple of hours before he has to catch a flight back to Champaign, Illinois, and return to his real job. He doesn't mind going back to work, saying he is grateful that he gets to do what he loves for a living and it has given him a platform to help others. There is one regret though, being a Tigers fan, Cranston wishes he could have caught a game while here. "But the last time I was here, it was about a year and a half ago, and I'm from Los Angeles originally so I'm a Rams fan," Cranston said. "We came to play the Lions and the Lions beat us. They played a better game and they won. They've got a great team and it was a lot of fun." Jamie L. LaReau is the senior autos writer who covers Ford Motor Co. for the Detroit Free Press. Contact Jamie at jlareau@ Follow her on Twitter @jlareauan. To sign up for our autos newsletter. Become a subscriber.

Forbes

a day ago

• Forbes

Ford Builds Brand Passion Through Alice + Olivia Collaboration

Ford's Bronco=based collaboration with Alice + Olivia focuses on the beach lifestyle Ford The current era of Ford's lineup can be described as passionate. It's models enable a lifestyle that embodies a sense of adventure, capability or speed, or all of the above. But this can be said about a lot of brands. Which is the thinking behind the newest project from the Blue Oval: a style collaborative with luxury fashion label Alice + Olivia. A capsule collection of shirts, jeans and jackets from Alice + Olivia feature Bronco images and ... More slogans Ford For Bronco, Ford wanted to find a way to translate the idea of capability into empowerment and to appeal to women, allowing drivers to extend the experience into the lifestyle of a Ford Bronco owner. A fashion brand would covey the idea nicely. It might seem a natural to partner with a brand that produces clothing and accessories for off-roading and overlanding, or one that delivers a performance that is as tough as Ford's lineup. However, while that idea would easily appeal to current drivers passionate about the Ford brand, would it extend to those who are not yet there? Ford's brand partnership team needed to find a fresh and inspiring idea. Sydney Sweeney is seen driving her Cherry red 1969 Ford Bronco GC Images A few years ago Ford discovered, almost by accident, that the actress Sydney Sweeney, a Gen Z star of White Lotus and Euphoria, among others, was a Ford fan, not only as a driver but also as a mechanic who restored her own vintage Bronco. The company then partnered with her to design and give away a Mustang in a sponsorship that brought a whole new light to the brand, giving it exposure to younger, female consumers. For Ford, the empowerment and authenticity that Sweeney brought to project was key and why it elicited so much passion among consumers following the story and vying to win the Mustang. Customized Bronco Sasquatch models Ford Partnerships Are Seen As A Gateway To Brand Growth Ford realized that reaching outside the natural alignment with brand partnerships could be the key to appealing to new audiences and customers. For each model that the company seeks partnerships with, they look for a story that 'resonates with an audience that we don't talk to,' said Tyler Hill, senior manager of global licensing at Ford. Ford's partnerships span the lifestyle space, from the Mustang and Raptor in video games such as Fortnite and Rocket League to, Pac Sun, True Religion and Huckberry, but those are just the start. These partnerships have been so successful that Ford plans to focus on building more in the coming years. The Mustang icon is plays out on classic Alice + Olivia pieces Ford How Ford Decides Which Brands To Partner With Ensuring that a partnership is the right fit is one of the most important elements, Hill said. Having a deep knowledge of a brand's values, its goals and its business plans is key. To facilitate this, Ford is represented by talent and brand agency CAA, which helps to find potential partnerships, looking for those overlapping values and business priorities, and makes the connection with companies that are a good fit. But the collaboration has to go deeper than that, Hill said. 'Shared investment is part of the key to figuring out what we want to develop together.' The collaboration starts with both brands developing the concept together; from there, they develop design boards, identify the pieces to be developed and work to align the collection and directional design, as well as the use of logos. With pre-production samples in hand they will look to the original design board to ensure continuity and if things aren't exactly right they will tweak the product. For Ford, getting the logos, modern imagery, heritage details and even vintage ads, slogans and other intellectual property right is a must. Ford maintains an archive of all materials that their partners can use to workshop a collection and ensure that it's done properly. Classic retro bellbottom jeans are a natural fit for the Bronco collaboration Ford Authenticity Is At The Root Of All Collaborations Another important part of the Alice + Olivia collaboration, or any collaboration, is authenticity. In this case, Ford envisioned using a fashion collaboration to showcase the beach lifestyle that Bronco embodies, a bit of a counter to Bronco's off-road reputation. Working with a softer, brighter color palette, Ford customized two Broncos for the sun-and-sand lifestyle, a perfect pairing with a female-focused fashion brand. Alice + Olivia was a natural not only for its appeal as an confident and empowering brand, but the fact that founder and creative director Stacey Bendet is a Bronco fan. That she takes a very nurturing posture toward anything that might impact the brand image of Alice + Olivia helped too; Bendet and her team took a deep look at how the Bronco partnership would work before agreeing to it. A The Alice + Olivia collaboration focuses on the beach lifestyle Ford Capsule Collection From Alice + Olivia The result of the collaboration is a 10-piece capsule collection of jeans, jackets and shirts priced from $195- $795 that dropped on June 20th. The collection, which features the Born Wild slogan as well as modern and vintage images and logos, is a limited edition offering and is expected to sell out quickly. Consumers who miss it this time should keep an eye out for more, though; Ford plans on collaborations as a part of its strategy for the future and possibly, more with Alice + Olivia. The interior of the Alice + Olivia collaborative Bronco Sasquatch Ford The Bronco 'Capsule Collection' Will Be Auctioned Off Also, in a limited edition of two, are the Ford Bronco Sasquatch models with custom exterior wraps and and updated cabins featuring elevated materials and finishes. The two custom models will be auctioned off in July at God's Love We Deliver Midsummer Night Drinks to benefit the charity. The other custom Bronco will also be auctioned off but Ford hasn't yet said when or where that will happen