Craft-beer halls fashioned out of reclaimed wood. Formerly fearsome neighborhoods that boast outdoor markets full of artisanal wares. And on the once-fearsome waterfront: an unholy expanse of glimmering new high-rises. Suffice it to say, New York City has undergone some dramatic cultural renovations over the past 50 years. Lest we forget, TNT’s new cop-and-crime series Public Morals (premiering August 25 at 10/9c) is here to remind us of the city’s seedier past.
Executive-produced by Edward Burns and his Saving Private Ryan director, Steven Spielberg, Public Morals tails two morally ambiguous Public Morals Division cops, Terry Muldoon (played by Burns) and Charlie Bullman (Michael Rapaport), who grapple with a surge of unsavory activity predominantly at the hands of the Irish-American mob. All the while, Officer Muldoon struggles to raise his kids with wife Christine (Elizabeth Masucci) on the straight-and-narrow. Prostitution, pornography, and greasing palms lie at the heart of this Manhattan project, which wrestles with crime and corruption.
In anticipation of Public Morals’ debut, we’re taking you back to times past on a “Then and Now” tour that shows you just how much Manhattan has changed. Click the circular button to see the barely recognizable transformation that the City That Never Sleeps has awoken to over the decades.
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