Shoe Leather

During the 1970s – for the whole decade – the Bronx suffered an epidemic of fires and abandonment. This destroyed over 80 percent of the South Bronx housing stock making it look like a bombed out city during World War II. What exactly caused this? Some blamed its residents, others blamed the landlords. In 1975, Gelvin Stevenson, a Bronx economist and journalist tried to sound the alarm by telling the story of one building on one boulevard that once promised the American Dream — but then succumbed to abandonment; Roosevelt Gardens on the Grand Concourse. In this episode, we investigate the toxic mix of invisible factors that turned the Bronx into a tinderbox

In 1978, Robert Davis was the youngest child to ever be sent to New York’s Rikers' Island Jail. He was Black, from the Bronx, and only thirteen. In this episode we look into Robert Davis’s life. We explore his old neighborhood in the South Bronx, his old middle school, and the media frenzy that surrounded his case. We explore how Robert was sucked into a riptide of tough-on-crime political theater that had consumed the country and New York City. And we try to find out where he ended up four decades later, long after his story had faded from the limelight and the city had forgotten his name.

In the 1970s, New York City was broke. Today, we know the city eventually bounced back, but at what cost? When a city is broke, who pays? Mayor Ed Koch dramatically cut the city’s budget in an effort solve a $600 million deficit. Among the cuts, were city hospitals. One in particular, Sydenham Hospital in Harlem, was a neighborhood institution with an important history for the Black community. When Mayor Koch announced the city was closing Sydenham, the community mobilized to save it. The years-long fight culminated in a takeover of the hospital by demonstrators in September 1980. What made Harlem fight so hard for this hospital? And why wouldn’t Mayor Koch listen? We spoke with New Yorkers who were central in the fight to save Sydenham. Ebun Adelona, MS, PhD, CPHQ, a community organizer whose dissertation “The Social Relations of Health” was a critical resource for this project. Carole Doneghy, a social worker at Harlem Hospital, and Judy Wessler, a health advocate, both of whom were active in organizing efforts. Haskell Ward, former Deputy Mayor in the Koch Administration, who resigned over the plans to close Sydenham.

In 1970, Bella Abzug took on an incumbent Democratic Congressman––and won. A tough Jewish lawyer raised in the Bronx, Bella would become one of the icons of second-wave feminism, passing laws that changed the lives of men and women. 50 years after she first ran for Congress, Bella has had a resurgence. In the past few years there have been plays, movies, and TV shows about her life. Why does she still spark such fascination today? How did she rise to power so quickly? And why didn’t she stay in office longer? All we’ll say for now is that everyone we interviewed for this podcast couldn’t stop talking as soon as we said the words “Bella Abzug.”

On the night of July 13, 1977, a citywide power failure plunged New York’s ten million residents into darkness. Chaos ensued. There was looting in every borough, with hundreds of fires set and thousands of arrests — but just one murder. The victim was 17-year-old Brooklyn native Dominick Ciscone. Over 40 years later, the Ciscone case is still unsolved, despite multiple witnesses, decades of police attention, and even some anonymous tips. Because that murder might not have been part of the Blackout’s chaos at all — it might have been planned, not by someone who anticipated the power going out, but by someone who saw an opportunity to kill in the dark.

On March 6, 1970, a townhouse in New York City’s Greenwich Village blew up. After unearthing large quantities of dynamite in the wreckage, local officials determined that the townhouse’s basement had been used as a makeshift bomb factory. Three people died in the explosion and the two women who survived would be on the run for the rest of the decade. They were a group of white, upper class, twenty-somethings, who only a few years before demonstrated in peaceful protest against the Vietnam War. What drove them to start building bombs in the basement of a Greenwich Village townhouse? The answer begins on college campuses in the late sixties. FDNY responding to the explosion, March 6, 1970. Transcript ARTHUR LEVIN: And, you know, I was certainly questioned by the FBI. When they were looking for some answers, in hindsight, I, there were signals of something amiss was going on in the building. DAVID HOLLERITH: That’s Arthur. ARTHUR: Right, Okay, so… my full name is Arthur. Aaron, double aaro n Levin, le VI, N. HOLLERITH: That building Arthur’s talking about, number 18. Its the one next door. He lives in Greenwich Village on West 11th. He’s been on this street since the sixties. Picture a redbrick townhouse, white windows, stone staircase, three stories tall and four counting the basement. In Baltimore they call it a rowhouse, in New York, It’s a townhouse. Arthur’s not just a longtime Villager, either. He’s actually president of Village Preservation, that’s the neighborhood’s historic preservation society. And in 1970, while so many other places in the city struggled, this neighborhood felt vibrant. ARTHUR: Yep. the block was really interesting… It was sort of old, not overwhelmingly artsy, but certainly a little bit artsy. And, and, you know, oriented towards the entertainment world. HOLLERITH: Actually, Arthur’s street, West 11th. Was pretty star-studded. The producer, Mel Brooks, and his wife Anne Bancroft owned a place down the street. Dustin Hoffman, lived two houses away. Which is funny because Hoffman played opposite to Bancroft in the movie The Graduate. Oh and, Bob Dylan, stayed a few blocks South HOLLERITH: Arthur lived next door to the Wilkerson’s.They.. weren’t famous, but they had money. ARTHUR: She was a Brit. He was an American, he owned. I think radio stations in the Midwest. their house was quite elegant. In terms of furnishings… They were very pleasant, upper class neighbors. HOLLERITH: They also traveled a lot. And so, it wasn’t unusual for Arthur to see people he didn’t know hanging around the house. ARTHUR: What was unusual was that all the shades were down all the time. And I think I may have seen the folks carrying in the explosives they were carrying in boxes. Music – Squeegees NEWSREEL: Investigators first thought the e

The Apollo Theater — the venue that shaped 20th-century Black music more than any other — shut its doors in the mid-1970s and stayed closed for years. It almost disappeared for good. But a mysterious buyer purchased the theater and reopened it in 1978. According to unofficial histories of the Apollo, the new owner was a man named Guy Fisher, one of the biggest heroin kingpins New York City has ever seen. The official history of the Apollo doesn’t ever mention Guy Fisher, and we wanted to know why. Our investigation uncovered a story of ambition. Of a love triangle. Of violence. And of redemption.

In season two, New York Drop Dead, reporters step back into the 1970s. They go beyond the bell bottoms and disco to explore what made this decade notorious in New York’s history. A decade in which the Big Apple went by a far more sinister nickname — Fear City. The city was broken and broke. When city officials asked the federal government for a bailout — President Gerald Ford told them they were on their own. The next day the New York Daily News ran the now infamous front page headline– Ford to City: Drop Dead. It was the decade the lights went out and The Bronx was burning. When peaceful protestors turned to making bombs, when the legendary Apollo Theater nearly closed for good and the man who saved it went to prison. The decade in which women’s rights would take center stage.Find out how things have changed since the 1970s – and how they’ve stayed the same.

In the 1990s, in the shadow of the FBI’s large-scale takedown of New York’s most infamous mafia family, an Indian immigrant was quietly building his own criminal organization. Gurmeet Singh Dhinsa came to the United States from the Punjab region of India with little to his name. He quickly built a multi-million dollar gasoline empire using bribery, intimidation and violence. For over a decade he terrorized the Sikh community in Brooklyn and Queens with his deadly enterprise. So how did police finally catch the Indian Godfather? [...]Read More...

In the 1990s, in the shadow of the FBI’s large-scale takedown of New York’s most infamous mafia family, an Indian immigrant was quietly building his own criminal organization. Gurmeet Singh Dhinsa came to the United States from the Punjab region of India with little to his name. He quickly built a multi-million dollar gasoline empire. For over a decade he terrorized the Sikh community in Brooklyn and Queens with his violent enterprise. So how did police finally catch the Indian Godfather?

In the late afternoon of February 3, 1990, two-day-old Steven Lyons was kidnapped from a Brooklyn hospital— a feat that seems nearly impossible with hospital security measures in 2020. Now, 30 years later, Shoe Leather reporters, Rachel and Elize, follow in the footsteps of the brazen baby-napper with the help of news archives, child abduction experts, and social media. [...]Read More...

What caused one of New York City's most destructive riots? A car accident. In this episode, we go back in time to a collision that changed the city forever.  [...]Read More...

On a hot summer night in 1991, seven-year-old cousins Gavin and Angela were getting ready to play. Gavin was undoing his bike chain while Angela eagerly stood nearby. Only a few moments separated them from Yosef Lifsh’s car and what would soon become one of the worst periods of unrest New York City has ever seen. In this episode, we go back to that fateful accident that sparked what many know as the Crown Heights Riots. Over the next three days, this Brooklyn neighborhood fell into chaos with residents, police and community leaders clashing. In looking back at what happened on August 19th, 1991, we explore Crown Heights itself, a neighborhood with many cultures and communities living side by side and ask: why did this happen and how did it get so bad?

In the late afternoon of February 3, 1990, two-day-old Steven Lyons was kidnapped from a Brooklyn hospital— a feat that seems nearly impossible with hospital security measures in 2020. Now, 30 years later, Shoe Leather reporters, Rachel and Elize, follow in the footsteps of the brazen baby-napper with the help of news archives, child abduction experts, and social media.

In the 1990’s, one organization dedicated a decade of work to gain FDA approval of a drug that promised to revolutionize abortion in America. Shoe Leather: the Abortion Pill follows the Population Council’s effort to bring mifepristone – and medical abortion – to the United States. Three decades later, we’ll relive the fight alongside those who were in the center of the ring and explore why some are still waiting for that revolution to arrive. [...]Read More...

In 1990, thieves stole four paintings in a span of five days. Nearly thirty years later, one of the recovered paintings made history at a Sotheby’s auction. This is the story of those thefts—and one artist’s revival. [...]Read More...

On March 25, 1990 eighty-seven people died when the Happy Land Social Club burned. After Julio Gonzalez argued with his girlfriend he bought a gallon of gasoline and set the club on fire. Until the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995 the Happy Land fire was the deadliest mass murder in US history. Though the tragedy has mostly slipped through the cracks of collective consciousness, for those who lost loved ones in the fire, it remains a part of their lives. This is a story of community, loss, memory, and resilience. This is Happy Land. [...]Read More...

Bruce Bailey was a tenants rights activist who dedicated his life to fighting landlords on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. He was a husband, a father, a graduate of Columbia College, and in June of 1989, he was brutally murdered. His dismembered body was found in trash bags on a street corner in the South Bronx. And his case was never solved. We set out to find the story behind Bailey’s killing. What could have motivated someone to murder and mutilate an activist? How has this case stayed cold for three decades? And what is Bruce Bailey’s legacy, thirty years after his death? [...]Read More...

In the 1990’s, one organization dedicated a decade of work to gain FDA approval of a drug that promised to revolutionize abortion in America. Shoe Leather: the Abortion Pill follows the Population Council’s effort to bring mifepristone – and medical abortion – to the United States. Three decades later, we’ll relive the fight alongside those who were in the center of the ring and explore why some are still waiting for that revolution to arrive.

“I start with a blank and there’s nothing more horrifying than a blank canvas” — artist Lee Krasner. New York City, December 1990: thieves stole four paintings in a span of five days. Nearly thirty years later, one of the recovered paintings made history at a Sotheby’s auction. This is the story of those thefts—and one artist’s revival.

On March 25, 1990 eighty-seven people died when the Happy Land Social Club burned. After Julio Gonzalez argued with his girlfriend he bought a gallon of gasoline and set the club on fire. Until the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995 the Happy Land fire was the deadliest mass murder in US history. Though the tragedy has since slipped through the cracks of collective consciousness, for those who lost loved ones in the fire, it remains a part of their lives. This is a story of community, loss, memory, and resilience. This is Happy Land.

Bruce Bailey was a tenants rights activist who dedicated his life to fighting landlords on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. He was a husband, a father, a graduate of Columbia College, and in June of 1989, he was brutally murdered. His dismembered body was found in trash bags on a street corner in the South Bronx. And his case was never solved. We set out to find the story behind Bailey’s killing. What could have motivated someone to murder and mutilate an activist? How has this case stayed cold for three decades? And what is Bruce Bailey’s legacy, thirty years after his death?

Shoe Leather is an investigative podcast that goes behind the scenes of seven forgotten stories that shaped New York City. In Season 1, New York in the 90s, you’ll hear about an unsolved murder, a multi-million-dollar art heist, an Indian mob boss, stolen babies, and a pill that promised to revolutionize abortion in America. Go along with the team as they knock on doors and track down the people who were at the center of the story. Shoe Leather is produced by reporters at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. [...]Read More...