Cullman Center Institute for Teachers: Drop Dead: The Fiscal Crisis of 1975 and the Transformation of New York City with Kim Phillips-Fein

Event Details

Drop Dead: The Fiscal Crisis of 1975 and the Transformation of New York City with Kim Phillips-Fein

In 1975, the largest city in the United States nearly declared bankruptcy. The financial collapse of New York—the home of Wall Street—raised large political questions. Could its economic problems be fixed? Were its generous public services possible in a recession? Was its postwar liberalism tenable? The fiscal crisis led to budget cuts that affected most of the city’s public institutions and set off a wave of protests. Although protesters sometimes successfully shaped how the cuts happened, they couldn’t resist larger changes as the city became increasingly oriented toward private investment. With the help of pamphlets, speeches, newspaper articles, and musical lyrics, this seminar will examine the fiscal crisis of 1975 and consider how it shaped the city today.

Kim Phillips-Fein is Associate Professor at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University, where she teaches twentieth-century American political history. She is the author of Invisible Hands: The Businessmen's Crusade Against the New Deal.  At the Cullman Center she is writing a book about New York City’s fiscal crisis of 1975.

The deadline to apply to this seminar has passed. 

  • Audience: Adults