Is New York still like this ?

It depends. There are good and bad areas no matter where you live in the US. And I'm sure the same goes for the rest of the world. But as for New York, the crime rates have been falling lower and lower with each passing year since the 90s. It's the safest big city in the country. I can understand how someone from another country could watch this movie and get the wrong idea. But don't forget that the kids in the movie were punks. They went around looking for trouble and that's why they were in the situations they were in.

I would say that there is not a film with a more accurate portrayal of the New York "feeling" than this.

For a few more great films with a little bit of a different perspective, check out The Squid and the Whale, Mean Streets, even Little Manhattan if you are up for more of a kids/feel good story.

The feeling is extremely hard to explain, but those films put you in NYC.

I went to High School in Astoria (Bryant H.S) and grew up in Woodside. It's completely different, but you can still find small pockets. What is the same is the sense of community that you get from being able to walk around from place to place. But as far as crime, NYC has become really safe. You still find places such as East NY, Queens Bridge, areas in the Bronx, Bushwick, etc that have their problems. Truth be told, I miss certain respects of the feel of NYC that this film captures. For all the insanity, there was a stronger sense of belonging in a neighborhood. Now, with transplants invading a lot of Brooklyn, and trickling into Queens these places are starting to feel like Manhattan, and I don't mean that in a good way. This film made me a bit nostalgic, but it is nice to be safer.

I'm from Queens and I went to high school in the QueensBridge area, also I hung around Astoria a lot because my best friend lives there. I can tell you that no, for the most part the violence of the boroughs has gone down drastically in the last twenty years or so. During the crack epidemic of the 80's the city was extremely dangerous. My mom moved to Queens in the 70's as a teenager and she tells me stories of when the Son Of Sam terrorized the streets, the rioting, the drugs and gang killings.

There are gangs of course in NYC but really, no where near as bad as years and years ago. The Latin Kings and those idiots, plus this other gang that recently has been making a lot of noise, MS-17 or something weird like that.

That being said I do wanna stress that NYC is not squeaky clean as of yet. Certain parts of Manhattan, East New York, and where I went to school in the QueensBridge area are not the best because in the QB drugs and prostitution run rampant. Just because an area is poor and disenfranchised does not mean it is violent, and I'm sure most of my fellow New Yorkers would agree. I walked the streets of Roosevelt Avenue everyday with my friends, also Jamaica, Brooklyn, Spanish Harlem, and I always felt safe.

My classmates and friends who were killed throughout my life, God Bless Them, they went looking for trouble and that is really unfortunate. They were killed or ended up in Riker's.

So basically, no, NYC is not that bad but overall the feeling is the same, tight knit communities and all that. Hope this helps!

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For the most part, yes. New York is a city of the haves and the have-nots and nothing much has changed for those on the lower end of the income scale.

Some of those films are just caricatures of NYC. Mean Streets especially, considering almost the entire movie was filmed in LA.