Following two decades of continuous decay, New York in 1990 brought yet another all-time record high in violent crime and to this day.
1990 and the three years that followed remain the most homicide-plagued stretch in the city's last five decades. The 1990s had quickly positioned itself to become the city's worst decade yet.
Yet something unprecedented occurred in the latter half of the decade: The crime rate fell by half and the murder rate by a third, with each year better than the last. By the time the decade was over, New York was a safer place than it had been at any point since the 1960s.
The 1990s in New York started as the city's worst decade yet ended far better than expected. These fascinating photos were taken by Aad van der Drift that show street scenes of New York in 1991.
