“Ford to City: Drop Dead”
In the summer of 1975, New York City nearly went bankrupt. When Mayor Abraham Beame appealed to President Gerald Ford for assistance, these newspaper headlines captured the chief executive’s response. Though it was ultimately saved from financial ruin, the city’s brush with insolvency symbolized the larger problems facing the nation: economic stagnation, high inflation, and unemployment. Hard times had seemingly spared no one. AP Images.