Sign-In
Cart
Drop Dead: How a Coterie of Corrupt Politicians, Bankers, Lawyers, Spinmeisters, and Mobsters Bankrupted New York, Got Bailed Out, Blamed the Presiden
Hardcover
Economics20th Century United States HistoryGeneral Political Science
Currently unavailable to order
Please enter your email and a message will be sent to you when this product becomes available on our website.
ISBN10: 1682452301
ISBN13: 9781682452301
Publisher: Regan Arts
Published: Apr 29 2025
Pages: 296
Weight: 0.60
Height: 1.00 Width: 6.40 Depth: 9.80
Language: English
ISBN13: 9781682452301
Publisher: Regan Arts
Published: Apr 29 2025
Pages: 296
Weight: 0.60
Height: 1.00 Width: 6.40 Depth: 9.80
Language: English
NEW YORK CITY IN THE 1970S WAS A CULTURE OF OPEN CORRUPTION. EVERYONE WHO WAS ANYONE WAS IN ON THE GRIFT. Ford to City: Drop Dead It's the most famous tabloid headline of all time (with apologies to Headless Body in Topless Bar). It also supplied the narrative that came to be accepted as truth regarding the New York City fiscal crisis of 1975--an uncaring, hapless, accidental President Ford abandoning America's greatest city in its hour of maximum need. This narrative--honed in 1975 by wily politicians like House Majority Leader Tip O'Neill and New York Governor Hugh Carey, assisted by one of the craftiest spinmeisters of them all, PR master John Scanlon--is, to put it mildly, nonsense. The counternarrative--that corrupt, spendthrift liberal politicians spent the city into bankruptcy with giveaways to unions and welfare cheats--is equally misleading. Acclaimed financial historian and attorney Richard Farley makes the case that the New York City fiscal crisis was a bipartisan affair, with the establishment elites of both parties behaving badly and feathering their own nests and the nests of their insider cronies. Other histories of the 1975 fiscal crisis have spread highly crafted, self-serving stories that include these brazen fabrications:
THE SPIN: A group of wise men led by investment banker Felix Rohatyn and assembled by Governor Hugh Carey created the Municipal Assistance Corporation--the MAC--that raised the money to bail out the city.
THE TRUTH: The MAC was an abysmal failure that couldn't sell its bonds as promised.
THE SPIN: In the city's darkest hour, a union leader heroically bailed the city out by loaning pension funds to save the day and avoid bankruptcy.
THE TRUTH: That union leader agreed to provide the loan weeks before, reneged to try and get a better union contract, and, when that failed, only decided to honor his commitment to avoid being exposed for his failed hardball tactics.
THE SPIN: The city's real estate magnates magnanimously prepaid their taxes to save the city from bankruptcy.
THE TRUTH: They got a discount on their taxes for doing so.
THE SPIN: Governor Carey's heroic efforts saved the city from bankruptcy.
THE TRUTH: Carey enlisted the services of a crafty, old Tammany Hall lawyer who drafted a law that permitted bankruptcy by another name.
THE SPIN: FORD TO NEW YORK: DROP DEAD. President Ford was willing to let New York City go bankrupt.
THE TRUTH: President Ford bailed the city out. Drop Dead brings the reader back to the New York City of the 1970s, when mob bosses ran entire industries and were on a first-name basis with mayors, governors, and presidential aspirants, when the fix was in on nearly everything, and you needed a connected lawyer to get anything done. Everyone who was anyone was in on the grift. The characters include politicians like Mayor Abe Beame, governors Hugh Carey and Nelson Rockefeller, House Majority Leader Tip O'Neill, and President Gerald Ford; fixer lawyers like Roy Cohn, Bill Shea (of Shea Stadium fame), and Bunny Lindenbaum (Fred Trump's fixer); bankers like David Rockefeller and Citibank/Citicorp CEO Walter Wriston (the most influential commercial banker of his time); and real estate developers like Fred Trump and his son Donald. Drop Dead is a cautionary exposé that amply demonstrates how the game of politics, banking, law, and real estate was played in New York City in the 1970s. It is a warning for those playing the same games today for even higher stakes in every city, nationally and internationally.
Also in
20th Century United States History
Designed for Hi-Fi Living: The Vinyl LP in Midcentury America
Borgerson, Janet
Schroeder, Jonathan
Paperback
From $11.99
By the Light of Burning Dreams: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the Second American Revolution
Talbot, David
Talbot, Margaret
Hardcover
$27.54
The Sullivanians: Sex, Psychotherapy, and the Wild Life of an American Commune
Stille, Alexander
Hardcover
$12.99
A Manufactured Wilderness: Summer Camps and the Shaping of American Youth, 1890-1960
Van Slyck, Abigail A.
Hardcover
$12.99
Mary's Mosaic: The CIA Conspiracy to Murder John F. Kennedy, Mary Pinchot Meyer, and Their Vision for World Peace
Janney, Peter
Hardcover
$11.99
What Have They Built You to Do?: The Manchurian Candidate and Cold War America
Jacobson, Matthew Frye
Gonzalez, Gaspar
Paperback
From $10.99
Dangerous Games: Faces, Incidents, and Casualties of the Cold War
Wise, James E.
Baron, Scott
Hardcover
$8.99
1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History--And How It Shattered a Nation
Sorkin, Andrew Ross
Hardcover
From $19.99
American Scoundrel: Roy Cohn's Dark Journey from Joe McCarthy to Donald Trump
Bird, Kai
Goldmark, Susan
Hardcover
$28.80
Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young: A Fugitive Family in the Revolutionary Underground
Dohrn, Zayd Ayers
Hardcover
$29.69
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
Rothstein, Richard
Paperback
$17.05
The Secret War Against Hate: American Resistance to Antisemitism and White Supremacy
Ross, Steven J.
Hardcover
$29.69
Ghosts of Sicily: The True Story of the Naval Intelligence Agents Who Courted the Mob to Fight Nazis in America and the Battlefields of Italy
Harmon, Mark
Carroll, Leon
Hardcover
$26.99
Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation
Kobes Du Mez, Kristin
Paperback
$17.06
The Hardest, Longest Race: Henry Ford and the Cross-Country Contest That Changed America
Moskowitz, Eric
Hardcover
From $19.99
The Housewives Underground: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the JFK Assassination Our Most Enduring Mystery
Tiffany, Kaitlyn
Hardcover
$31.50
Shadow Before the Flame: The Hindenburg Disaster and the Prelude to War
Katz, Catherine Grace
Hardcover
$36.10
El Paso: Five Families and One Hundred Years of Blood, Migration, Race, and Memory
Ulloa, Jazmine
Hardcover
$27.00
Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II
Graham, Elyse
Paperback
From $11.99
The Last Full Measure: An American Family and How the United States Brought Home the Dead of World War II
Clarke, Kim
Hardcover
$27.95
Liberation Summer: The Moment That Changed the Women's Movement and the Future of American Politics
McElya, Micki
Hardcover
$30.40
Transgender History, Third Edition: A Resource for Today's Struggle--And Tomorrow's
Stryker, Susan
Paperback
$20.69
The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics
Brown, Daniel James
Paperback
From $11.99
The Steal: Four Right-Wing Hard-Liners, One Republican Presidency, and the Raid on America's Courts
Wagner, Alex
Hardcover
$26.99
Gerontocracy in America: How the Old Are Hoarding Power and Wealth--And What to Do about It
Moyn, Samuel
Hardcover
$27.00
Five Bullets: The Story of Bernie Goetz, New York's Explosive '80s, and the Subway Vigilante Trial That Divided the Nation
Williams, Elliot
Hardcover
$28.80
The Summer of Death: The Great Heat Wave of 1936 and the Making of Modern-Day America
Williams, Geoff
Hardcover
$33.25
An Inconvenient Woman: The Extraordinary Life of Lillian Smith, the Southerner Who Defied Jim Crow America
Merritt, Keri Leigh
Hardcover
$28.50
A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them
Egan, Timothy
Paperback
$16.20
Yuppies: The Bankers, Lawyers, Joggers, and Gourmands Who Conquered New York
Gottlieb, Dylan
Hardcover
$30.40
The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl
Egan, Timothy
Paperback
From $10.99
The Flag Was Still There: A History of the American Experiment in Five Anniversaries
McKean, David
Bennett, M. Todd
Hardcover
From $19.99
A Librarian's War: The Man Who Fought World War II with Books and Brought the Joy of Reading to Millions
Manning, Molly Guptill
Hardcover
$31.49
The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the Cia, and the Rise of America's Secret Government
Talbot, David
Paperback
$21.84
When America Roared: How the 1980s Saved, Then Broke, the Country--And Led Us to Today
Kaufman, Jonathan
Hardcover
$31.50
1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History--And How It Shatteredâ a Nation (Large Print Edition)
Sorkin, Andrew Ross
Paperback
$35.15
Playmakers: The Jewish Entrepreneurs Who Created the Toy Industry in America
Kimmel, Michael
Hardcover
$31.34
The CIA Book Club: The Secret Mission to Win the Cold War with Forbidden Literature
English, Charlie
Hardcover
$33.25
Solo and Together: Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, an Enigmatic Life and Marriage
Hansen, James R.
Hardcover
$38.00
How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America
Richardson, Heather Cox
Paperback
$22.99
Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City
Ansfield, Bench
Hardcover
$30.39
The Gods of New York: Egotists, Idealists, Opportunists, and the Birth of the Modern City: 1986-1990
Mahler, Jonathan
Hardcover
$30.40
This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible
Cobb, Charles E., Jr.
Paperback
$24.65
The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther
Haas, Jeffrey
Paperback
$17.09
The Most Awful Responsibility: Truman and the Secret Struggle for Control of the Atomic Age
Wellerstein, Alex
Hardcover
$30.40
The Last Flight: The Untold Story of the Search for JFK Jr. and the Race Against the Atlantic
Webster, W. Russell
Webster, Theresa M.
Hardcover
$28.49
Martyrs to the Unspeakable: The Assassinations of Jfk, Malcolm, Martin, and Rfk
Douglass, James W.
Hardcover
$36.10
The Devil Reached Toward the Sky: An Oral History of the Making and Unleashing of the Atomic Bomb
Graff, Garrett M.
Hardcover
$33.25
An American Girl: How a Billion-Dollar Doll and Its Unlikely Founder Changed Girlhood Forever
Fitzsimons, Amanda
Hardcover
$28.50
The Feather Detective: Mystery, Mayhem, and the Magnificent Life of Roxie Laybourne
Sweeney, Chris
Hardcover
From $19.99
Dear Senator: A Memoir by the Daughter of Strom Thurmond
Washington-Williams, Essie Mae
Stadiem, William
Paperback
$18.99
Kingmaker: Pamela Harriman's Astonishing Life of Power, Seduction, and Intrigue
Purnell, Sonia
Paperback
$20.90
Evidence of the Extraordinary: Discoveries from the Series the Proof Is Out There
Sancho, Miguel
Hardcover
$28.50
The Azusa Street Mission and Revival: The Birth of the Global Pentecostal Movement
Robeck, Cecil M.
Paperback
$16.14
How We Get Free (Updated 2nd Edition): Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective
Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta
Paperback
$18.95
The Distance Between Our Names: The Untold History of America's War on Japanese Immigrants
Richter, Paul
Hardcover
$27.00
Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror, and Deliverance in the City of Love
Talbot, David
Paperback
$20.89
The Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze That Captured Turn-Of-The-Century America
Baron, David
Hardcover
$28.49
Who Killed Jfk?: Solving America's Greatest Murder Mystery
Russell, Dick
Reiner, Rob
Hoffman, David
Hardcover
$28.50
A Treacherous Secret Agent: How Literature Spoke Truth to Power During the Red Scare
Garber, Marjorie
Hardcover
$28.50
You Can't Catch Us: Lady Bird Johnson's Trailblazing 1964 Campaign Train and the Women Who Rode with Her
McKenna Schmidt, Shannon
Hardcover
$25.19
Guerra Contra Todos Los Puertorriqueños: Revolución Y Terror En La Colonia Americana
Denis, Nelson A.
Paperback
$20.89
The Forgotten 500: The Untold Story of the Men Who Risked All for the Greatest Rescue Mission of World War II
Freeman, Gregory A.
Paperback
$20.90
A Place Called Yellowstone: The Epic History of the World's First National Park
Wilson, Randall K.
Paperback
$18.95
Every Time a Bell Rings: The Legacy of It's a Wonderful Life, America's Most Beloved Holiday Film
St James, Emily
Theisen, Lauren
Hardcover
$30.40
A Shadow Over the World: Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Rise of Fascism, and the Making of America's World War II
Hitchcock, William I.
Hardcover
$33.25
The Radical Fund: How a Band of Visionaries and a Million Dollars Upended America
Witt, John Fabian
Hardcover
$33.25
The President and the Oligarch: Roosevelt, Mellon, and the Triumph of Big Government
Steinmetz, Greg
Hardcover
$28.50
Ghosts of Honolulu: A Japanese Spy, a Japanese American Spy Hunter, and the Untold Story of Pearl Harbor
Harmon, Mark
Paperback
$18.99
Out Where the West Begins: Profiles, Visions, and Strategies of Early Western Business Leaders
Anschutz, Philip F.
Hardcover
$33.20
The Silver Snarling Trumpet: The Birth of the Grateful Dead--The Lost Manuscript of Robert Hunter
Hunter, Robert
Paperback
$19.79
The Church Committee Report: Revelations from the Bombshell 1970s Investigation Into the National Security State
Hochman, Brian
Guariglia, Matthew
Paperback
$21.84
True Blue: The Dramatic History of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Told by the Men Who Lived It
Delsohn, Steve
Paperback
$14.24
The Feather Detective: Mystery, Mayhem, and the Magnificent Life of Roxie Laybourne
Sweeney, Chris
Paperback
$18.00
Banished Citizens: A History of the Mexican American Women Who Endured Repatriation
Ramírez, Marla A.
Hardcover
From $19.99
Rolling Stone and the Rise of Hip Capitalism: How a Magazine Born in the 1960s Changed America
Ponce de Leon, Charles L.
Hardcover
$28.50
Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement from the 1950s Through the 1980s
Fayer, Steve
Hampton, Henry
Paperback
$32.00
Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America's Fight Over World War II, 1939-1941
Olson, Lynne
Paperback
From $10.99
Myth America: Historians Take on the Biggest Legends and Lies about Our Past
Zelizer, Julian E.
Kruse, Kevin M.
Hardcover
$12.99
Pre-Code Essentials: Must-See Cinema from Hollywood's Untamed Era, 1930-1934
Luperi, Kim
Reid, Danny
Paperback
$24.69
Days of Rage: America's Radical Underground, the Fbi, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence
Burrough, Bryan
Paperback
$20.90
The War They Won: The Story of World War II, as told by Those Who Were There
K. Kistler, Lt Hobart
Hardcover
$49.99
Bubble in the Sun: The Florida Boom of the 1920s and How It Brought on the Great Depression
Knowlton, Christopher
Paperback
$19.95
A Place Called Yellowstone: The Epic History of the World's First National Park
Wilson, Randall K.
Hardcover
$32.30