Throughout 70s and 80s the Times Square was a haven for XX theaters, go-go girls, pimps, whore houses, rent boys, hustlers, thieves, dealers, and lowlifes on the make. Police and city authorities had basically declared the area as DMZ for crime and sex and the 1977 debut of Show World across 42nd Street from the Port Authority Bus Terminal was the highwater mark for the Doo-Wop as the salubrious way was called by its malevolent denizens.
Successive mayors attempted to clean up Times Square, but the Mafia-owned establishment relied on the Free Speech Amendment to protect their wicked fiefdom. Finally Rudy Giuliani enacted in new adult zoning laws in 1995 and the end came the following year with the closure of every XXX theaters and porno shops.
I happened to be walking through the neighborhood on that rainy day. Affectionados of perversity were crying on the sidewalk, as the moving crews loaded their merchandise onto trucks. Their patrons stood outside in tears chanting, “Fuck Mickey Mouse.” A friend of mine lamented the disappearance of Times Square. “NYC has been thrown into a blender and homogenized into a bland and boring urban pastiche. This city once had character and disparate neighborhoods. Now it’s just numbingly the same wherever you go. I was driving around the city yesterday and occurred to me that downtown-uptown, west-east, it all looked the same now. Same store fronts, same hideous developer apartment buildings, same gourmet coffee, same gentrifications, same same….shame.” My friend wasn't speaking about egg creams and luncheonettes. All that wickedness is gone like the Wicked Witch of the West melting in the WIZARD OF OZ.
But thanks for the memories.
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