Getting Off The Bruckner And Smearing An Artist Just Doesn’t Have The Same Resonance

Tom Wolfe’s “Bonfire of the Vanities,” 20 years later:

To some New Yorkers, Mr. Wolfe’s satire was bitingly accurate, nailing both a racist criminal justice system and the politicians who played on white fear and minority anger for personal gain.

To others, it was a cynical endorsement of racial stereotypes that did not so much critique white paranoia as cater to it.

Either way, though, the New York of “Bonfire,” to a degree that might well have shocked people in 1987, no longer exists. Not in reality, and not in the collective imagination.

New York is on track to have fewer than 500 homicides this year, down from 2,245 in 1990. The white population is no longer shrinking, and diverse immigration has made the city less black-and-white.

The crime drops that marked the Giuliani era — along with some divisive police confrontations with minorities — have continued under a Bloomberg administration that civil rights leaders credit with bringing more interracial respect.

More locally, the Bronx neighborhoods near the site of Sherman’s accident are now dotted with owner-occupied row houses and apartments. Artists have moved into Mott Haven lofts.