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That's how a lot of young blacks live everywhere in the country these days; the New York situation is merely terrible, not unusually terrible. A recent report of the National Urban League, The State of Black America 1980, shows that while many blacks have moved up the proverbial money ladder in the past few years, many more have fallen off. In New York the estimated level of unemployment among young blacks and Hispanics is set at anywhere from 38.7% to 80%. No one believes they know the true figure, perhaps because to deal dope and run numbers may be considered forms of employment. Blacks and Hispanics in New York are as desperate as ever, and without an effective leader.
As an article of political faith, Koch is frequently regarded by blacks as a racist, mainly because he has cut back on services to try to balance the budget, and the poor always feel those reductions most acutely. Koch's proposed closings of Sydenham Hospital in Harlem and of three other large city hospitals that principally serve the poor have the residents of those areas dismayed and furious at the mayor's apparent unconcern for their needs. What rankles blacks and Hispanics particularly is Koch's manner, which has none of Lindsay's shallow gregariousness, but no gentleness in it either. As yet Koch has not learned that the last thing hopeless people have need of is a realist.
4) EDUCATION. Among Koch's other cutbacks are the schools. Since 1976 about 70 have been eliminated, and with them approximately 1,000 teaching jobs (not including special education teachers), 700 assistant principals and 400 guidance counselors. Extracurricular activities have nearly been cut out entirely. Still, Deputy Chancellor Richard Halverson sees a new stability in the school system. A memo prepared by Halverson's staff notes that in the period from 1976 to 1980 both reading and math scores have improved, if minimally, in certain grades. What is missing, thanks to the staff reductions, are many of the elements of school life that make it enjoyable and attractive. To complete the picture: also missing are 130 handguns and 277 knives confiscated from pupils in 1980, three times the size of the arsenal seized in 1976.
5) CRIME. In 1977 there were 1,557 homicides committed in New York. In 1979 there were 1,752. Local statisticians may boast that New York ranks a poor 13th nationally as a city of crime, but that is small consolation to the woman who can no longer wear jewelry on her neck for fear that some quick-handed thug will yank it away. One morning in Central Park, a woman on horseback was jumped by a man from a tree. Subways are no longer for sleeping. One of the spring 1980 fashions in city crime has been to shove robbery victims before oncoming trains. The trains themselves look like murderers; like rattlers, tattooed from head to tail with graffiti. Yet New Yorkers have to ride them.