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101 Things New Yorkers Loved About NYC In 1976
By
Jen Carlson
Published May 1, 2014
Modified May 1, 2014
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By
Jen Carlson
Published May 1, 2014
Modified May 1, 2014
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The internet didn't create The Listicle, the Best Of List, or even the Let's Place A Random Number In This Headline List. That was all print. And in 1976 The New York Times printed a list titled 101 Things To Love About New York City—if it were a year later we'd assume this was a sponsored ad for the I ♥ NY campaign. Here's how it looked in print:

See a larger version here
Scouting NY stumbled upon this treasure in the NY Times archives recently, and while some points are outdated ("Habitually fitting your thumbnail in the Y-cutout of a subway token") some of it is still pretty relevant! Here are a few you may relate or raise your eyebrow to:
- "Being nostalgic about things in New York that never were so great."
- "Hating Con Edison."
- "New York's proximity to Montauk."
- "How no one takes the top newspaper off the pile."
- "Flipping the change tray in the plastic taxicab divider."
- "Hating pigeons."
- "The coldest wind in the world on 125th Street and 12th Avenue."
- "Losing yourself in a crowd."
- "Imagining New York without anyone in it."
- "The Brooklyn Museum serving Nathan's hot dogs."
- "Looking for a place you know on the dirty restaurant list."
- "Bags of beer."
- "Subway cars with public-address speakers that don't work."
- "Johnny Carson is gone."!
- "Chevy Chase isn't."
- "The apostrophe missing from DONT WALK."
- "Brooklyn Day." (Now every day in Brooklyn Day!)
Man, even lists were better back then... but let's not forget what point #1 insinuates: nostalgia is death. That said, visit our NYC in the 1970s archives here.
Tagged
101 reasons
1970s
1976
list
listicle
ny times
Jen Carlson
Jen Carlson is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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