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

Jonathan Mahler

Macmillan, Mar 21, 2006 - History - 384 pages

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 mass arrest in New York's history. As the turbulent year wore on, the city became absorbed in two epic battles: the fight between Yankee slugger Reggie Jackson and team manager Billy Martin, and the battle between Ed Koch and Mario Cuomo for the city's mayoralty. Buried beneath these parallel conflicts—one for the soul of baseball, the other for the soul of the city—was the subtext of race. The brash and confident Jackson took every black myth and threw it back in white America's face. Meanwhile, Koch and Cuomo ran bitterly negative campaigns that played upon urbanites' fears of soaring crime and falling municipal budgets.

These braided stories tell the history of a year that saw the opening of Studio 54, the evolution of punk rock, and the dawning of modern SoHo. As the pragmatist Koch defeated the visionary Cuomo and as Reggie Jackson finally rescued a team racked with dissension,1977 became a year of survival but also of hope.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning is a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and the basis of the 2007 ESPN miniseries, starring John Turturro as Billy Martin, Oliver Platt as George Steinbrenner, and Daniel Sunjata as Reggie Jackson.

Contents

• Section 1: 3
• Section 2: 33
• Section 3: 44
• Section 4: 67
• Section 5: 72
• Section 6: 88
• Section 7: 114
• Section 8: 164
• Section 9: 175
• Section 10: 180
• Section 11: 180
• Section 12: 180
• Section 13: 180
• Section 14: 180
• Section 15: 180
• Section 16: 180
• Section 17: 187
• Section 18: 201
• Section 19: 214
• Section 20: 237
• Section 21: 260
• Section 22: 291
• Section 23: 299
• Section 24: 310
• Section 25: 315
• Section 26: 325
• Section 27: 334
• Section 28: 341
• Section 29: 355

About the author

Jonathan Mahler, a writer for The New York Times Magazine, is the author of Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning and The Challenge: How a Maverick Navy Officer and a Young Law Professor Risked Their Careers to Defend the Constitution--and Won.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning: 1977, Baseball, Politics, and the Battle for the Soul of a City
• Author: Jonathan Mahler
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Macmillan, 2006
• ISBN: 0312424302, 9780312424305
• Length: 384 pages
• Subjects: History / United States / State & Local / Middle Atlantic (DC, DE, MD, NJ, NY, PA); Social Science / Customs & Traditions; Social Science / Sociology / Urban; Sports & Recreation / Baseball / General; Sports & Recreation / Baseball / History