In the mid to late '70s, New York was a city on its knees, close to bankruptcy, riven with violent crime, and in the grips of a drugs epidemic. Upon arriving at the city's airports in the summer of 1975, visitors were presented with a pamphlet subtitled A Survival Guide for Visitors to the City of New York, featuring a hooded skull, and the words Welcome To Fear City.
But despite the city's poverty and lawless reputation - in fact, sometimes because of it - New York remained a mecca for young artists, musicians, writers and film-makers - drawn to the metropolis by the promise of cheap rent, hedonistic night life and a vibrant underground scene. In these years, the city gave birth to hip-hop, nurtured emerging street artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring, and incubated an emerging punk rock community on it's sketchy Lower East Side, where the likes of Blondie, Ramones, Television, Patti Smith and The Breakfast Club made their name.
You can be forgiven if the final name on that list doesn't ring any bells, but you sure as hell know the band's singer, Madonna Louise Ciccone, better known to the world by just her first name.
