Fun City: John Lindsay, Joe Namath, and How Sports Saved New York in the 1960s

by Sean Deveney

Overview

On January 1, 1966, New York came to a standstill as the city’s transit workers went on strike. This was the first day on the job for Mayor John Lindsay—a handsome, young former congressman with presidential aspirations—and he would approach the issue with an unconventional outlook that would be his hallmark. He ignored the cold and walked four miles, famously declaring, “I still think it is a fun city.”

As profound social, racial, and cultural change sank the city into repeated crises, critics lampooned Lindsay’s “fun city.” Yet for all the hard times the city endured during and after his tenure as mayor, there was indeed fun to be had. Against this backdrop, too, the sporting scene saw tremendous upheaval.

On one hand, the venerable Yankees—who had won 15 pennants in an 18-year span before 1965—and the NFL’s powerhouse Giants suddenly went into a level of decline neither had known for generations, as stars like Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford on the diamond and Y.A. Tittle on the gridiron aged quickly. But on the other, the fall of the city’s sports behemoths was accompanied by the rise of anti-establishment outsiders—there were Joe Namath and the Jets, as well as the shocking triumph of the Amazin’ Mets, who won the 1969 World Series after spending the franchise’s first eight seasons in the cellar. Meanwhile, the city’s two overlooked franchises, the Knicks and Rangers, also had breakthroughs, bringing new life to Madison Square Garden.

The overlap of these two worlds in the 1960s—Lindsay’s politics and the reemerging sports landscape—serves as the backbone of Fun City. In the vein of Ladies and Gentlemen: The Bronx is Burning, the book tells the story of a remarkable and thrilling time in New York sports against the backdrop of a remarkable and often difficult time for the city, culturally and socially.

The late sixties was an era in which New York toughened up in a lot of ways; it also was an era in which a changing of the guard among New York pro teams led the way in making it a truly fun city.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781683580997
Publisher:	Sports Publishing LLC
Publication date:	01/02/2018
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	376
Sales rank:	1,079,301
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.80(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Sean Deveney has been a writer and editor at Sporting News since 1999, covering all aspects of sports. He has authored four books, including The Original Curse, Facing Ted Williams, and Before Wrigley Became Wrigley.

Table of Contents

Preface vii

Chapter 1 "I believe the Jets have found their star" 1

Chapter 2 Enter John Vliet Lindsay 16

Chapter 3 Decline and Fall 28

Chapter 4 "What's the matter, rookie?" 40

Chapter 5 Ten Million Lunatics 52

Chapter 6 Meet the Mets 67

Chapter 7 The Fun City Has a Fun Mayor 80

Chapter 8 White and Black and Redneck 97

Chapter 9 "I think we're going to have a riot" 113

Chapter 10 No Quarrel with Them Vietcong 132

Chapter 11 Backlash 147

Chapter 12 "Nothing but garbage and rats" 163

Chapter 13 Of Riot, Revolt, and Hair 178

Chapter 14 "What kind of people are we?" 193

Chapter 15 Confrontation 207

Chapter 16 "I'll guarantee you" 223

Chapter 17 Light, Meaningless, Dippy and Lovely Few Days 236

Chapter 18 Eating Crow 251

Chapter 19 "A year ago I would have felt it was pretty hopeless" 264

Chapter 20 The Saints of Lost Causes 277

Chapter 21 "It is best not to plan on promises and dreams" 291

Source Notes 304

Index 343

Editorial Reviews

08/31/2015
Deveney, a longtime writer and editor with Sporting News, nimbly chronicles the ups and downs of New York mayor John V. Lindsay and New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath, two big personalities who faced high demands while riding a humongous wave of late-1960s political and social tumult. By 1965, according to Time magazine, as Deveney notes here, New York City had become “a shiftless slattern, mired in problems that had been allowed to proliferate for decades.” Economic and technological changes left scores of N.Y.C. residents unemployed. Those looking to sports for a distraction only got more grief. The once-powerful Yankees and Giants were felled by age, institutional miscues, and plain old ennui. Change was needed in both spheres. Lindsay, an erudite, handsome 43-year-old Congressman, entered the mayor’s office in 1965 with a progressive mind-set (paying attention to minorities and ghettos), but his patrician air rankled blue-collar workers and their unions. Namath, hedonistic and shaggy-haired, took over as the Jets quarterback that same year, quickly becoming a headline-hogging sex symbol who elicited resentment from his teammates—and swoons from the ladies. This impressively researched history serves as a vivid portrait of the two men’s valiant, if fruitless, quest for greatness in a perpetually unforgiving city. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

“Rollicking…Led by the hedonistic slinger Joe Namath, the Jets shocked the football world with their Super Bowl III upset of the Baltimore Colts in 1969. That autumn, the once-risible Mets won the World Series. The Knicks capped off one of the greatest sports seasons any city had ever enjoyed when they took the N.B.A. title the following spring.” —New York Times Book Review

“Sean Deveney . . . recaptures the era’s lunatic euphoria and unpredictable political impact in Fun City.” —New York Times

“This impressively researched history serves as a vivid portrait of the two men’s valiant, if fruitless, quest for greatness in a perpetually unforgiving city.”—Publishers Weekly

“Vividly chronicling the social, racial, and political upheaval of New York City in the 1960s, Deveney . . . traces the intersecting rise of the Jets (football), Mets (baseball), and the Knicks (basketball) over New York’s “establishment” teams: the Giants (football) and the Yankees (baseball). . . . This dense, objective, unflinching, and thorough narrative doesn’t just paint a picture of New York in the 1960s. The work is steeped in the headlines. . . . [F]ans of New York sports teams will feel viscerally transported.” –Library Journal

“Deveney combines his two big subjects neatly. . . . [T]here is plenty here of interest to sports fans and followers of urban politics.” -Booklist

"Sean Deveney deftly details the fan euphoria related to the emergence of first-time world champions against the backdrop of tumultuous events that affected all New Yorkers."—Jeff Miller, author of Going Long: The Wild Ten Year Saga of the Renegade American Football League in the Words of Those Who Lived It

"Fun City is a rollicking, insightful look back at an incredible time in New York history. From Joe Namath to John Lindsay, Mickey Mantle to Muhammad Ali and all the Amazin' Mets, here is a story that will entertain and astonish you, even if you lived through it."—Kevin Baker, author of The Big Crowd

"I remember New York in the late 1960s and early 1970—a dreamland of seediness, magnificent in its plunge toward the abyss. Somehow against all odds its professional teams conjured magic. Long-haired Joe Namath, wounded Willis Reed, and their gangs of Jets and Knicks captured the soul of the times. It could have happened only in New York. Sean Deveney recaptures the moment in vivid detail. I felt younger again just reading Fun City."—Randy Roberts, co-author of Rising Tide: Bear Bryant, Joe Namath, and Dixie's Last Quarter

“Looking for a good pool/beach book? Fun City . . . [is] about the roiling stew of 1960s NYC politics (emphasis on John Lindsay), mixed with the radical changes in the city’s sports scene (emphasis on Sonny Werblin’s Jets and Joe Namath).”—Phil Mushnick, New York Post

“Rollicking…Led by the hedonistic slinger Joe Namath, the Jets shocked the football world with their Super Bowl III upset of the Baltimore Colts in 1969. That autumn, the once-risible Mets won the World Series. The Knicks capped off one of the greatest sports seasons any city had ever enjoyed when they took the N.B.A. title the following spring.” —New York Times Book Review

“Sean Deveney . . . recaptures the era’s lunatic euphoria and unpredictable political impact in Fun City.” —New York Times

“This impressively researched history serves as a vivid portrait of the two men’s valiant, if fruitless, quest for greatness in a perpetually unforgiving city.”—Publishers Weekly

“Vividly chronicling the social, racial, and political upheaval of New York City in the 1960s, Deveney . . . traces the intersecting rise of the Jets (football), Mets (baseball), and the Knicks (basketball) over New York’s “establishment” teams: the Giants (football) and the Yankees (baseball). . . . This dense, objective, unflinching, and thorough narrative doesn’t just paint a picture of New York in the 1960s. The work is steeped in the headlines. . . . [F]ans of New York sports teams will feel viscerally transported.” –Library Journal

“Deveney combines his two big subjects neatly. . . . [T]here is plenty here of interest to sports fans and followers of urban politics.” -Booklist

"Sean Deveney deftly details the fan euphoria related to the emergence of first-time world champions against the backdrop of tumultuous events that affected all New Yorkers."—Jeff Miller, author of Going Long: The Wild Ten Year Saga of the Renegade American Football League in the Words of Those Who Lived It

"Fun City is a rollicking, insightful look back at an incredible time in New York history. From Joe Namath to John Lindsay, Mickey Mantle to Muhammad Ali and all the Amazin' Mets, here is a story that will entertain and astonish you, even if you lived through it."—Kevin Baker, author of The Big Crowd

"I remember New York in the late 1960s and early 1970—a dreamland of seediness, magnificent in its plunge toward the abyss. Somehow against all odds its professional teams conjured magic. Long-haired Joe Namath, wounded Willis Reed, and their gangs of Jets and Knicks captured the soul of the times. It could have happened only in New York. Sean Deveney recaptures the moment in vivid detail. I felt younger again just reading Fun City."—Randy Roberts, co-author of Rising Tide: Bear Bryant, Joe Namath, and Dixie's Last Quarter

“Looking for a good pool/beach book? Fun City . . . [is] about the roiling stew of 1960s NYC politics (emphasis on John Lindsay), mixed with the radical changes in the city’s sports scene (emphasis on Sonny Werblin’s Jets and Joe Namath).”—Phil Mushnick, New York Post

From the Publisher

10/01/2015
Vividly chronicling the social, racial, and political upheaval of New York City in the 1960s, Deveney (Before Wrigley Became Wrigley City) traces the intersecting rise of the Jets (football), Mets (baseball), and the Knicks (basketball) over New York's "establishment" teams: the Giants (football) and the Yankees (baseball). The two landscapes, politics and sports, were represented by the city's young, charismatic mayor John Lindsay, and the Jets's brash quarterback Joe Namath. During that period, Time lamented that the city was "a cruel parody of its legend," suffering a seeming deterioration of its political and cultural scenes. Lindsay and Namath represented a change of guard, with the mayor being elected under the campaign motto, "He is fresh and everyone else is tired." Despite bringing the Jets a Super Bowl victory, Namath's off-field playboy antics kept him from gaining the respect of his teammates. VERDICT This dense, objective, unflinching, and thorough narrative doesn't just paint a picture of New York in the 1960s. The work is steeped in the headlines, featuring immense detail and exhaustive research. In some places, it's too much like a chronicle and lacks levity, but fans of New York sports teams will feel viscerally transported.—Benjamin Malczewski, Toledo-Lucas Cty. P.L., MI

Library Journal