Fifty years ago today, the New York Daily News printed what may be the most famous front-page headline that paper has ever produced, consisting of five simple words: “Ford to City: Drop Dead.” The news it was announcing was President Gerald Ford’s decision not to offer a federal bailout to the financially strapped city. But the phrase became shorthand for 1970s New York in general. Fifty years later, it’s worth considering what separates that city from the one again in the crosshairs of an