For a great documentary look at the culture from around the same time, nothing can compare to Style Wars, which was shown on PBS in 1983 and re-released on DVD a few years back. The story of the guy painting the “throw ups” over other artists’ burners is documented in Style Wars and I assume the same event was the basis of that plot element in Beat Street. And the “where are they now” segments on the Style Wars DVD are priceless. The film is on Google Video for anyone with the inclination to watch it at work…something I’d never do, of course.

New York is definitely a different city today. The South Bronx especially, parts of which looked like a war zone and was typically described as a “moonscape” during the 70s and early 80s due to the ridiculous number of burned out buildings and the vacant lots fill with the rubble of those demolished and never cleared out. Subway cars are now engineered to repel paint and graffiti that’s done to the windows using a scratching method and acid is removed almost as quickly as it goes up. And the Bronx itself has been going through something of a renaissance, at least to a degree.

I worked in the eastern side of the northern part of Bronx for three years and watched new construction go up almost continually in the South Bronx during that time. But it is still one of the most poverty stricken parts of the country. As of the end of August last year, the 2005 poverty rate for the nation as a whole was reported to be 12.6%; for the Bronx it was 29.2%. And I think that number factors in Riverdale, a very affluent neighborhood in the northwest part of Bronx County.