I didnt know Guiliani had cleaned it up. I have fond memories from high school when all the guys would pool their money and a few "designated" buyers (usually me and two others) would go into "the city" and buy stuff for everyone. M80's by the gross (2 72pc. half gross boxes), M100's, cherry bombs, bottle rockets, anything you could think of - cheap too. From memory - we would take the dntown IRT, get off on Canal street and walk to Mott street. Coming up the stairs out of the subway we couldn't walk more than a few steps before being propositioned. We would then be taken to some of the seediest urine stenched buildings imagineable, and the fireworks would be inside dresser drawers, enough stuff to blow the whole place to kingdom come. Just a little static electricity........... They always placed the works in crisp new brown bags carefully folded. So when we went back to the subway, on the platform would be like a dozen guys standing there with these same neatly folded brown bags. We would look at each other and smile. (heh heh)
We also used to have "chicken" contests, to see who could hold an M80 longest after lighting it before tossing the thing. That was at least up until one of the guys caught one with a fast fuse that went off about 2" from his hand. All the skin on his palm was fused together by the blast and heat, so he only had limited use of his right hand after that.