On January 1, 1966, New York came to a standstill as the city's transit
workers went on strike. This was the first day on the job for Mayor John
Lindsay--a handsome, young former congressman with presidential
aspirations--and he would approach the issue with an unconventional
outlook that would be his hallmark. He ignored the cold and walked four
miles, famously declaring, "I still think it is a fun city."
As profound social, racial, and cultural change sank the city into
repeated crises, critics lampooned Lindsay's "fun city." Yet for all the
hard times the city endured during and after his tenure as mayor, there
was indeed fun to be had. Against this backdrop, too, the sporting scene
saw tremendous upheaval.
On one hand, the venerable Yankees--who had won 15 pennants in an
18-year span before 1965--and the NFL's powerhouse Giants suddenly went
into a level of decline neither had known for generations, as stars like
Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford on the diamond and Y.A. Tittle on the
gridiron aged quickly. But on the other, the fall of the city's sports
behemoths was accompanied by the rise of anti-establishment
outsiders--there were Joe Namath and the Jets, as well as the shocking
triumph of the Amazin' Mets, who won the 1969 World Series after
spending the franchise's first eight seasons in the cellar. Meanwhile,
the city's two overlooked franchises, the Knicks and Rangers, also had
breakthroughs, bringing new life to Madison Square Garden.
The overlap of these two worlds in the 1960s--Lindsay's politics and the
reemerging sports landscape--serves as the backbone of Fun City. In
the vein of Ladies and Gentlemen: The Bronx is Burning, the book tells
the story of a remarkable and thrilling time in New York sports against
the backdrop of a remarkable and often difficult time for the city,
culturally and socially.
The late sixties was an era in which New York toughened up in a lot of
ways; it also was an era in which a changing of the guard among New York
pro teams led the way in making it a truly fun city.
