How much has New York changed in 20 years?

There’s an article in New York magazine this week: “Why New Yorkers Live Longer.” This prompted a conversation at work with relative newcomers to the City. Jeannie flipped to page 32 (yes, a real paper magazine page) to cite the change in homicide statistics from 2,272 in 1990 to 579 in 2005. It’s dramatic, no question about it.

I became that dreadful I-Remember-When lady for just a sec. I told them when I came to the city in my late teens two of my female apartmentmates were mugged on their way to a local bar. A crazed man grabbed them both and dragged them into an entry alcove of a classic pre-War building. One roommate grabbed the assailant’s meat cleaver BY THE BLADE to get it away from him as he wielded it against her. The other knee-ed the guy in the groin. They both ran away into the bar, one fainting as soon as the adrenaline wore off, the other vomiting at the curb when she started to come down and realized she needed stitches in her gashed hand.

The next year an intruder broke into our dorm room and tried to assault a different roommate while she was getting ready to go out. She screamed, the Resident Assistants came running to her aid. They chased the assailant out of the building down the block and beat him to a pulp. The cops thanked them once they showed up. The R.A.s became a Navy Seal and a the leader of commando training camp in Maryland, after graduation.

Later that year, during exam week at Christmastime, a local guy was cleaning his gun on the roof of his building nearby. He released a bullet from the gun and it entered the bedroom of the dormroom a few stories above mine. It took out my friend’s left eye and she was given Last Rites. Today she’s a suburban mom in Connecticut.

Life goes on. None of these stories made the news. Our reality was we had to keep our heads down, don’t let a predator see you’re scared, don’t draw attention to yourself.

Contrast that to what I witnessed on the Downtown #1 train on Sunday afternoon. A large family boarded the train on their way to the Dominican Independence Day Parade on Sixth Avenue in Midtown. In their hurry to get everyone in the car the pre-teens charged with pushing the large ice cooler from the outside platform into the subway car knocked the lid off the cooler. At least two dozen bottles of Corona beer rolled out and across the train’s floor as it wobbled over the rails. Cubes of ice spilled out of the cooler, too.

The difference? Riders exclaimed their “whoas!” “conyo!s” and “shits” while laughing. Then they jumped to their feet to help collect the bottles as they rolled down through the length of the car. They returned them to the owner’s cooler. They. Returned. The. Beer. To. The. Owners.

How do you think this scenario would have played out in 1990, I ask you?