In the mid-1970s, New York was in crisis. The large factories, which at one time had formed part of the landscape of Manhattan, lay abandoned. The view was desolate, alarming, yet suggestive of somewhere potentially to live. The New York Daily News published its infamous cover with the headline “FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD”, a phrase attributed to the President, who had declared that he would veto any bill calling for “a federal bail-out of New York City” and instead supported legislation that would make it easier for the city to file for bankruptcy