As the financial, industrial and transport center of the Republic of Vietnam, Saigon however, beginning in the 1960s, experienced an economic downturn and high inflation, as it was completely dependent on U.S. aid and imports from other countries.
Widespread urbanization led to the city being turned into “a huge slum” and suffering from “prostitutes, drug addicts, corrupt officials, beggars, orphans, and Americans with money”. It was “a black-market city in the largest sense of the word”, according to Stanley Karnow.
Take a look back at Saigon in the 1960s through these 33 vibrant vintage photographs:
Shops on a street, 1960
A man and a traditionally dressed woman speed by on a motorbike, 1961
On a street in Cholon Chinatown, 1961
Tired cyclo drivers stretch out for siestas in their cabs, 1961
A man drives his wife and son on a scooter past passengers on a cyclo, 1961
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