Drop Dead City

New York, 1975. The city is minutes away from bankruptcy — a humiliating turn of events for a town that has always imagined itself the centre of the universe. The scale of the problem is too big for Albany. President Gerald Ford is unsympathetic (in the famous Daily News headline, he tells the City to “Drop Dead”). Sanitation workers are on strike. Cops and firemen picket the airports warning tourists not to venture out at night in what they call “Fear City”. This is the story of where everything went wrong, and how they tried to turn it around…

Tells an enormously complex story of financial fine points and political maneuvering, along with the underlying social and personal backstories, with a deft touch and a brisk sense of wonder.

Richard Brody, The New Yorker

No story about money is straightforward, but this version is about as fun and vivid as it could be.

Alissa Wilkinson, New York Times