Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning: 1977, Baseball, Politics, and the Battle for the Soul of a City

by Jonathan Mahler

Book Overview

A passionate and dramatic account of a year in the life of a city, when baseball and crime reigned supreme, and when several remarkable figures emerged to steer New York clear of one of its most harrowing periods.

By early 1977, the metropolis was in the grip of hysteria caused by a murderer dubbed "Son of Sam." And on a sweltering night in July, a citywide power outage touched off an orgy of looting and arson that led to the largest...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312424302
• ISBN13: 9780312424305
• Release Date: March 2006
• Publisher: Picador USA
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 0.92 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.4" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

A Kaleidoscope Perspective on a Dark Time in New York City's History

Take a wild ride through 1970s New York with "Ladies and Gentlemen the Bronx Is Burning." This book captures the electrifying and chaotic atmosphere of the city, showcasing unforgettable moments of the era - from the legendary New York Yankees to the notorious Son of Sam Murders. The author's exceptional storytelling skills provide a vivid and kaleidoscope perspective on a dark time in New York City's history. The book explores the social, political, and economic turmoil of the era. This immersive experience brings the reader to the heart of the action and shows New York at its wildest and most chaotic. Despite the chaos, "Ladies and Gentlemen the Bronx Is Burning" offers a hope-inspiring message. It highlights an unexpected source of hope - the Yankees' incredible journey to win the World Series. The book's uplifting message showcases the unbreakable spirit of the city's inhabitants. This thought-provoking and gripping read is a powerful reminder that even in the darkest of times, there is always the potential for redemption and triumph. Don't miss out on this unforgettable rollercoaster journey through a tumultuous period.

The Bronx Is Burning inside and out of the Yankees

The Bronx Is Burning Summer 1976. A mischievous killer is on the loose and the Yankees are trying to go from worst to first. The trial for the Son of Same has gone cold. The Yankees are trying to win whatever in takes. Explosive and unpredictable Billy Martin is fried up but more importantly he is threatening to leave the Yankees again but who knows if he is really going to leave. George Steinbrenner is on the verge of cutting every coach on the team until Reggie Jackson comes to town and answers all his critics with his bat. Until Reggie gets into a slump and is on the verge of getting cut when he says the world famous quote "I'm the straw that stirs the drink." Reggie denies this quote to this day. This book taught me about the history but I really wasn't thinking about that because I was so into the book. I liked this book because I like the Yankees and I think that it is cool to learn about your favorite team's history. I also liked it because my dad remembered when this happened. My dad says that this time was very scary. I think that it is very cool that this amazing book is a true story. I really like how this book ended. The Yankees are the best sport team in the history of sports and this was to me one of the best years of Yankee history. M.S.

In Search of a Hero

Jonathan Mahler has written an exceptionally well-crafted book about a single year (1977) in the history of New York City. The fascinating story alternates between the Yankees and mayoral politics. As the ball drops in Time Square to usher in the New Year, New York and the Yankees are far down in the standings, but the situation is about to get much worse. In 1977, New York City goes bankrupt and nobody in the nation gives a hoot, the Yankees haven't won the World Series in years and everybody outside New York is delighted, the lights go out in the worst blackout in the city's history and the poor loot and burn, Reggie Jackson comes to the Yankees and his teammates yawn, and Mario Cuomo and Ed Koch slug it out to win the honor to run this disaster. There is an old adage that a sports team eventually takes on the personality of the head coach. Can a city take on the personality of a sports team? Or does a sports team accommodate its home city. These parallel stories told in The Bronx is Burning make you wonder about the relationship between sports and politics and the value of heroes in our society. The Bronx is Burning is really about leadership, or more specifically, a public's desperate search for leadership. In hindsight, 1977 was the bottom of an ugly cycle. Reggie Jackson, Mr. October, rose to heroic heights to deliver New York City another World Championship and Ed Koch will be remembered as the courageous mayor that started the turnaround of a once great city that still had its best years in front of it. The Shut Mouth Society The Shopkeeper

Crisis, What Crisis?

The 1970s was not a great time for major cities nationwide. It was a point where the optimism generated from The Great Society came crashing down, the racial divide became cavernous and urban decay was a standard of living. New York City swallowed the bitter pill in 1977 with a citywide power outage and massive looting that followed, a mayoral campaign long on oftentimes nasty rhetoric but short on tangible solutions, the Son of Sam murders and an emerging style of newspaper reporting of style over substance. And before I forget, there was the diamond opera of George, Billy & Reggie in "The House That Ruth Built." Author Jonathan Mahler does a spectacular job in weaving so many storylines in a concise history of a city in crisis. It is highly readable and moves with a swift pace of a novel and again shows how fact is stranger than fiction when politics ambles to home plate and egos are larger than simple commonsense.

Highly Addictive -- A Home Run

Jonathan Mahler has hit a home run with this excellent examination of New York City politics, baseball and social life in 1977. The dual narrative focuses primarily on the titanic, four-way struggle for Gracie Mansion involving Koch, Cuomo, the incumbent Abe Beame and Bella Abzug, as well as the incendiary Steinbrenner-Martin-Jackson triangle of animus in the Bronx. The sweltering summer of 1977 also featured the Son of Sam serial murders and power-failure-induced rioting - the City's worst civic disorder since the Civil War - and Mahler skillfully weaves these compelling events into a captivating, past-faced narrative. Ground-zero of the rioting was the Bushwick section of Brooklyn - less than a decade before a stable, working class neighborhood - and Mahler provides a vivid portrait of the chaotic mayhem that took hold there (as well as in other poor communities) when the lights went out on July 13. Mahler also shows how the ghetto rioting transformed the Mayoral race. In mid summer, Ed Koch, then a relatively low profile Congressman, was fourth in the polls, mired in the low single digits. However, the erstwhile Greenwich Village liberal recognized that New Yorkers were ripe for a stern, law-and-order message. In particular, Koch's embrace of capital punishment and his get-tough policies generally found resonance with an electorate that had grown weary of the culture of lawlessness that increasingly pervaded their lives. The long-shot candidate - David Garth, his campaign guru, placed Koch's odds at no better than 40 to 1 - rode voter outrage to a first-place finish in the Democratic primary, and after besting Cuomo in a runoff, to City Hall. Meanwhile, up in the Bronx, the season-long hostilities between the egocentric Reggie Jackson and his combative manager flared famously in an ugly confrontation in the visitor's dugout at Fenway Park. Steinbrenner sided with his million-dollar superstar (Mahler calls Jackson New York's first black superstar; I'm not so sure), the fans overwhelmingly with the pugnacious Martin. Despite the team's success, the melodrama off the field eclipsed the drama on the field for much of the season - until Jackson's prodigious, three-homer performance in the last game of the World Series. Mr. October's Ruthian feat helped the Yanks capture their first world championship in 12 years and set everything right - at least until next season. I am a compulsive reader, but found this book especially addictive. I think you will, too.

Behind the Scenes, from the Yankees to the Son of Sam

If only history was like this in high school! Incredible behind-the-scenes baseball reporting capturing, among others, a racist, envious but somehow still-sympathetic Billy Martin, a preening, calculating, self-defeating but heroic Reggie Jackson, and a cast of unvarnished Yankees stars that tells you more about what the majors were like (and presumably still are) than 5,000 made for the ESPN-age interviews about just trying to help the team win. Add to the mix the real, untold story of how the Son of Sam was caught, the minute-by-minute account of how one Con Ed employee's personal meltdown in front of a switchboard led to the system-wide meltdown known as the Blackout of '77, and the frank reminiscences of two Bushwick beat cops who tried to keep the peace that night, billy-clubs in hand, and you get a taste of what's in store. Mahler has an incredible nose for what's interesting and, like Tucan, he follows it to the unknown behind-the-scenes stories that give you a visceral sense of what happened. Forget spin, this is like listening to history across a dinner table from the folks who drove it. And with this cast of characters -- from Billy and Reggie to Cuomo and Koch to the Son of Sam and the detective who finally brought him to justice -- the tales are far better than anything I'll ever hear over a meal. A fascinating book that's also a quick, lively read. If you have any interest in baseball, politics, criminal investigation, the 70's, the Black Out or NYC in general, you will love it.