Heather Ann Thompson

Public sector jobs have dried up.

One of the

Important employers of teenagers, for example, in the summer, they were called CETA jobs.

They're eradicated by the Reagan administration.

Funding for drug rehab, funding for occupational and educational services.

opportunities, all of these are being eradicated.

And so for these teenagers, there isn't much to do, there isn't much hope, and there's a whole lot of need on the ground to have some money.

And there's a few choices, and one of them is the illegal drug trade.

But teenagers themselves were very loathe and leery to get involved in that.

Illegal markets are always dangerous.

And these four teens were

on their way into Manhattan because they wanted to go to a video arcade there to jimmy open the coin receptacles.

And we might remember those old arcades you'd put in a quarter to play pinball.

Well, they would collect those quarters.

They'd jimmy it open.

They'd get a little cash that day.

And so what was kind of bringing everyone on the train together in that moment, including the passengers, was they're all sharing an urban crisis, but they are all responding to it differently, feeling differently about it.

And that's how this whole moment kind of ignites, I would say, on December 22nd, 1984.

Yeah, he says, you know, do you have $5?

And even that is an interesting kind of moment because why does he want $5?