<p>A friend of mine lived on the same Soho street with Etan Patz when he was abducted. She was a few years older than he was. I asked her if her parents kept her in a bit after that, and she said, nah.</p>
<p>Went to HS during the 70’s in NYC. It was commonplace to see one or more girls on crutches in the hallway because of various platform shoe malfunctions, a.k.a. they had fallen off their sky-high shoes and had either twisted or broken an ankle. The wooden platform ones sometimes had intricate carvings that rendered them more works of art than mere shoes. And of course the girls on crutches would have one foot in a cast and the other still wearing the other platform shoe. </p>
<p>Individual class schedules were made up by the administration not with the help of a computer (we sort of knew what that was and it took up an entire room) but by the “Program Committee” club where the students WERE the computer. They sat with a batch of cards with various students’ names and a blank schedule and waited for the teacher to call out the course name and number and the list of students taking it and one was supposed to raise one’s hand if you had that kid’s index card and you were given a class time for that kid to put down on the card. </p>
<p>The Times Square area was a sleazy pit. You wouldn’t want to be there in broad daylight and even less at night if you were female. That’s one thing I’m glad has changed in the ensuing years. </p>
<p>Dating during the “Son of Sam” period was fraught with tension; if you had long brown hair and were of a certain young age and were going out at night you tied it back or wore a hat (at the time he was reputed to be going after that physical type), and your folks had one more thing to worry about until they saw you come home safe and sound.</p>