proposed was an impromptu tour of New York City and its surrounding boroughs. New York through his eyes. I’d been to New York dozens of times, but as I soon learned, you haven’t seen New York until you’ve seen it through the eyes of a New Yorker. Dennis Stavropoulos was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. He grew up as a part of what he describes as the final stickball generation. A neighborhood boy. And as we walked around the streets he was raised in, he described the “true” New York from his youth. The French Connection New York – with the subway cars
tagged heavily in graffiti. The Son of Sam New York – when members of the neighborhood put aside their differences to combat a local terrorist. The Taxi Driver New York.
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“Taxi Driver is the New York from my childhood,” he said through a deep, purposeful Brooklyn accent. “You’d walk down 42nd street and you’d see it all: the X-rated theaters, the drug use, the casual theft – now there’s a Disney store on 42nd street. It’s a very different city today.”
It was interesting to hear Dennis relate his early years to so many different films, because that is exactly what his latter years reflect: the framework of an influential motion picture.