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Co-directors Peter Yost & Michael Rohatyn’s DROP DEAD CITY is the first-ever feature documentary devoted to the NYC Fiscal Crisis of 1975, an extraordinary, overlooked episode in urban American history that saw an already crumbling city of eight million people brought to the edge of bankruptcy and social chaos by a perfect storm of debt, greed, ambitious social policy and poor governance. Named after the famous New York Daily News headline “Ford to City: Drop Dead,” Drop Dead City overturns present day assumptions about politics and compromise, showing what bitter rivals achieved through shared sacrifice. . It examines the origins of the crisis and documents the increasingly desperate clashes of stakeholders - unions, banks, local, state and federal governments, and average citizens - as, together, they slide ever nearer to the unthinkable - bankruptcy. Co-directors Peter Yost & Michael Rohatyn join us to talk about their personal connection to the financial crisis and finding many of the key people who worked to get New York City back on solid financial footing, gathering together an amazing array of archival material and the satisfaction of telling a very complex story in a way that illuminates the past that offers a perspective on our own future.
By Mike KasparCo-directors Peter Yost & Michael Rohatyn’s DROP DEAD CITY is the first-ever feature documentary devoted to the NYC Fiscal Crisis of 1975, an extraordinary, overlooked episode in urban American history that saw an already crumbling city of eight million people brought to the edge of bankruptcy and social chaos by a perfect storm of debt, greed, ambitious social policy and poor governance. Named after the famous New York Daily News headline “Ford to City: Drop Dead,” Drop Dead City overturns present day assumptions about politics and compromise, showing what bitter rivals achieved through shared sacrifice. . It examines the origins of the crisis and documents the increasingly desperate clashes of stakeholders - unions, banks, local, state and federal governments, and average citizens - as, together, they slide ever nearer to the unthinkable - bankruptcy. Co-directors Peter Yost & Michael Rohatyn join us to talk about their personal connection to the financial crisis and finding many of the key people who worked to get New York City back on solid financial footing, gathering together an amazing array of archival material and the satisfaction of telling a very complex story in a way that illuminates the past that offers a perspective on our own future.