An incident I am unlikely to forget. It was sometime in late 1984. My late husband and I were driving through the Times Square area with our four-year-old son, a very precocious youngster who was able to read (though not actually understand) much of The New York Times by the time he entered kindergarten. As we drove past one of the theater marquees, he asked me, "Mommy, what does that mean: 'Girls on Fire'"? Not wanting to outright lie to him, I replied, "It means they are very, very hot." Fortunately, that ended the conversation!
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Fascinating how language evolves, sometimes for the better. In this decade, thanks to the brilliant Alicia Keys, the expression "Girl on Fire" has come to mean a person of great achievement. The power of music!
When I was a teenager in the early- mid sixties my family allowed me and my girlfriends to travel by el and subway to the first seasons of Shakespeare in the Park and return home alone to the Bronx project we lived in. However, I was forbidden explicitly from going to 42nd Street. 'Nough said.
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O AUGUST LORD
Thank God it's Friday,
The week's all plundered,
But Sir, must the feeltemp
Approach 100?
Thank God it's Friday,
The week's all plundered,
But Sir, must the feeltemp
Approach 100?
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Probably like a few New Yorkers, I find myself sometimes longing for the "bad old days" -- instead of tourist-infested streets with bare-chested exhibitionists and scary cartoon characters ready to mug you for a couple of bucks...
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THE GREAT INDOORS
New Yorkers sweltered plenty
In 1916 A.D.
Not so a century later
In 2016 A.C.
New Yorkers sweltered plenty
In 1916 A.D.
Not so a century later
In 2016 A.C.
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I remember taking a date to a movie in Times Square circa 1977. We got off the train and as we came up to street level we saw a group of people starting to form in front of a nearby store front. Young minds as we were, the thought was "Gee, what's going on? Let's go take a look."
Someone had just been shot dead on the street. Right in the heart of "the crossroads of the world". We had arrived on the grizzly scene before the cops.
Someone had just been shot dead on the street. Right in the heart of "the crossroads of the world". We had arrived on the grizzly scene before the cops.
3
I am a retired MTA employee that drove the M42, or the M 106 as it was known then, on 42nd Street. The block between 7th and 8th Avenues was always a mess, day and night. Weekends even more so. There was a male prostitute, dressed in a women's wig, that walk along the double yellow lines, and would solicit male drivers with offers of oral sex as they drove across 42nd Street. The number one movie that was always playing, "Head" Nurse".
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The change is better for tourism, but culturally, I am not so sure.
Look, this is gentrification and it happened all over Manhattan. Since Times Square was the most central spot for the transformation, it is the most obvious. I grew up in the city, and went to high school in Times Square.
I know I am going to get beaten up for this (pun intended), but maybe it was a little scary for the tourists, but it was our culture.
Really, are desnudas and the Naked Cowboy any more highbrow?
I even remember walking down this block during the '77 blackout. And as a nice 19 year old middle class Jewish boy, I did not feel threatened.
And let's also consider the factors:
Porn has merely moved online.
And is the drug problem in our country any better now than 40 years ago?
And crime has gone down across the city.
Actually, I remember walking out of the subway 20 years ago with my young children when the Disney Store just opened at the SW corner of 7th and 42nd St. A costumed Mickey and Minnie awaited us at the top of the steps.
"They can't ever get rid of the vermin on this street" was my first thoughts.
Look, this is gentrification and it happened all over Manhattan. Since Times Square was the most central spot for the transformation, it is the most obvious. I grew up in the city, and went to high school in Times Square.
I know I am going to get beaten up for this (pun intended), but maybe it was a little scary for the tourists, but it was our culture.
Really, are desnudas and the Naked Cowboy any more highbrow?
I even remember walking down this block during the '77 blackout. And as a nice 19 year old middle class Jewish boy, I did not feel threatened.
And let's also consider the factors:
Porn has merely moved online.
And is the drug problem in our country any better now than 40 years ago?
And crime has gone down across the city.
Actually, I remember walking out of the subway 20 years ago with my young children when the Disney Store just opened at the SW corner of 7th and 42nd St. A costumed Mickey and Minnie awaited us at the top of the steps.
"They can't ever get rid of the vermin on this street" was my first thoughts.
4
BTW, the WNBA is now back on after the Olympic Break and the SA Stars are hosting the Liberty tonight at 8 PM over on NBA TV and MSG Network.
Warm summer evening, my Father driving the car with all the windows down. Mom was next to Dad, my 14 year old brother in the front seat by the window. I was in the backseat with my sister. While stuck in traffic on 42st St, a "lady of the evening" stuck her bare bosoms into my brother's face. Mom was horrified. Brother had a smile on his face the rest of the night.
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I went to college on Long Island in the mid-70s, usually getting there from my upstate hometown by taking a bus to Port Authority and then a train from Penn Station. I tended to walk the blocks down 8th Ave. from one to the other to save the couple of bucks a cab would cost (taking the subway never occurred to me at the time). It was quite a walk, sometimes struggling along with a large extra suitcase full of LPs that weighed a ton. But I was never afraid. The only odd events I recall were being shyly approached by a young woman about my age who quietly propositioned me as I walked past, and seeing a seemingly dead, heavyset man lying half in the gutter in a white shirt and tie. No signs of injury or blood, and pedestrians just gave him a wide berth and looked down at him as they went by.
It was dirty. There were porn shops. Maybe there was a lot going on that my naive young eyes didn't understand. Granted, it wasn't Times Square and it wasn't 42nd St., and it was always daytime or the beginning of twilight at worst, so perhaps there wasn't really that much going on aside from workers and travelers trying to get from one place to another. But to my impressionable student mind, it wasn't anything but exciting, and it caused my senses to tingle with awareness in ways today's Manhattan could never do. I don't miss the crime and the filth, but I do miss that.
It was dirty. There were porn shops. Maybe there was a lot going on that my naive young eyes didn't understand. Granted, it wasn't Times Square and it wasn't 42nd St., and it was always daytime or the beginning of twilight at worst, so perhaps there wasn't really that much going on aside from workers and travelers trying to get from one place to another. But to my impressionable student mind, it wasn't anything but exciting, and it caused my senses to tingle with awareness in ways today's Manhattan could never do. I don't miss the crime and the filth, but I do miss that.
7
Many of us remember when everything, but everything, was exciting and important. Times Square was a cess pool, the subway cars were unlit and halting, and most of us looked around us when we walked the streets and wondered if we'd be able to escape or, if not, to maim, would-be muggers.
And yet -- . We were young.
Try to remember, and if you remember, then . . . .
Glad the 1979s and 1980s are gone.
And yet -- . We were young.
Try to remember, and if you remember, then . . . .
Glad the 1979s and 1980s are gone.
As Madonna was arriving on Times Square in 1978, Thurman Munson was Captain for the Yankees. Still miss him.
4
I can vividly remember what the old Times Square was like, circa 1985. After taking a new job and changing my commute from downtown to midtown, I'd walk up 7th Ave from Penn Station each morning en route to Rockefeller Center. There were homeless sleeping on the sidewalks, beggars at each corner, and at 42 St offers from those selling sex or drugs -- a typical commute.
One day while navigating Times Square I saw a man with a crab net, the kind that was mounted on the end of a pole and used to scoop your catch out of the water when using a hand line. He was swinging it wildly and running after his target: pigeons. At first I thought it was hysterical and laughed out loud at what I was witnessing. Then a man walking next to me who was offended at my amusement told me that I shouldn't laugh, that the man was probably just trying to catch a meal.
While Times Square has changed from pushers and hookers to lost tourists and other bewildered visitors, I've never forgotten that day and make it a point to buy hot dogs or gyros or whatever fare is available from a local food cart each payday and give it to the hungry who are always there but somehow never seen by others as anything more than an annoyance. And I think of the man with the net and now tell the younger pedestrians not to laugh as I once did.
The scenery has changed but the work society needs to do has not.
One day while navigating Times Square I saw a man with a crab net, the kind that was mounted on the end of a pole and used to scoop your catch out of the water when using a hand line. He was swinging it wildly and running after his target: pigeons. At first I thought it was hysterical and laughed out loud at what I was witnessing. Then a man walking next to me who was offended at my amusement told me that I shouldn't laugh, that the man was probably just trying to catch a meal.
While Times Square has changed from pushers and hookers to lost tourists and other bewildered visitors, I've never forgotten that day and make it a point to buy hot dogs or gyros or whatever fare is available from a local food cart each payday and give it to the hungry who are always there but somehow never seen by others as anything more than an annoyance. And I think of the man with the net and now tell the younger pedestrians not to laugh as I once did.
The scenery has changed but the work society needs to do has not.
11
(She arrived in the city via Times Square with $35 in her pocket and ate garbage out of trash cans.) -- "Probably all mythology." -- Wait, what?? What sort of privileged background is her biographer from? Because he sounds like he's never met anyone who has lived like this. Far from being "all mythology", this is ALL almost certainly true. She arrived via Port Auth...got in a cab and told the cabbie to let her out "in the center of everything"...he took her to Times Square...she had very little money...and eating out of a trash can is not the same as "eating garbage" - restaurants often sit neatly bagged and perfectly fresh/untouched leftover food out with the trash. Literally none of this sounds remotely like mythology - it's all true. It sounds like her biographer (and quite honestly, the Times reporter as well) has no idea just how common this sort of thing is among struggling artists and other poor people. It's a well documented fact that Madonna was a street urchin/hustler/grifter in her early NYC days. I too arrived in NYC via Port Auth with one suitcase and very little money. In my early days, I intercepted many a restaurant item that was headed for the trash. I lived on 9th and C...Madonna was on 4th and B. I've got many stories from the neighborhood that might sound like mythology but are all too true. I'm sure Madge has some mind-blowing true stories from the real gritty NYC!
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Nostalgia for the old Times Square is absurd. It is expressed mostly by those who weren't around the area at the time. Muggings and near-constant sexual assaults on the street were the norm. Most people found it to be a threatening place during daylight hours and a downright terrifying one at night.
8
Sign outside a theater on 42nd sometime in the 80's, "See dead bodies rot before your eyes."
4
I don't have a memory to share except for that from a column written by one of your Times predecessors, Russell Baker.
Back in the bad days of 42nd street, he wrote that looking down that street from 7th Ave. to 8th you could find "someone who has committed, is committing, or is planning to commit every crime known to mankind since the beginning of time."
Back in the bad days of 42nd street, he wrote that looking down that street from 7th Ave. to 8th you could find "someone who has committed, is committing, or is planning to commit every crime known to mankind since the beginning of time."
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Mets Pope'da Cardinals
3
“She's a product of the New York experience."
La Isla Madonna (rough translation: The Island of Madonna)
Tune of La Isla Bonita
Right now I think of Madonna
It seems like Cats and Cher, she’s always there
Young girl who came to Manhattan
The tales of her yesterday are here to stay
(chorus)
Apocryphal the tales that tease
Heart was pumping from the sleaze
Knowing it’s her day to seize
La Isla Madonna
And as she checked your coat
Ambition set so high
She’ll grab your heart and catch your eye
And never say goodbye
(bridge)
When she arrived, she was so short on cash
That I hear she ate donuts right out of the trash
I hear she lived where the bugs on the floor
Used to spread out and dance when she’d come through the door
Right now I think of Madonna
The tales of her yesterday are here to stay
(repeat chorus)
La Isla Madonna (rough translation: The Island of Madonna)
Tune of La Isla Bonita
Right now I think of Madonna
It seems like Cats and Cher, she’s always there
Young girl who came to Manhattan
The tales of her yesterday are here to stay
(chorus)
Apocryphal the tales that tease
Heart was pumping from the sleaze
Knowing it’s her day to seize
La Isla Madonna
And as she checked your coat
Ambition set so high
She’ll grab your heart and catch your eye
And never say goodbye
(bridge)
When she arrived, she was so short on cash
That I hear she ate donuts right out of the trash
I hear she lived where the bugs on the floor
Used to spread out and dance when she’d come through the door
Right now I think of Madonna
The tales of her yesterday are here to stay
(repeat chorus)
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It seems like only yesterday two different events shaping my youth from Staten Island. My Uncle Louie ,Aunt Helen and Johnny going to a clam bar in the late sixties in the Times Square area and eating clams on the half shell 12 o'clock at night with Uncle Louie having a cold beer and us washing down those sweet clams with ice cold Coca-Cola. I had to be 13 or 14 years old.
Moving into the high school years of the early seventies going into my first peep shows with my three High School buddies from Monsignor Farrell High School.
taking the subway back down to South Ferry and then the Staten Island Ferry back to Staten Island. Haha those were the days of my youth. and not tell a soul where we were.
George V.
WPB, FL.
Moving into the high school years of the early seventies going into my first peep shows with my three High School buddies from Monsignor Farrell High School.
taking the subway back down to South Ferry and then the Staten Island Ferry back to Staten Island. Haha those were the days of my youth. and not tell a soul where we were.
George V.
WPB, FL.
11
It's where us kids from the burbs went to buy fake id's and chase a glimpse at the ragged people. The legal drinking age was 18 so thanks to Times Square I was running around barefoot in Bronx pubs at 15. So sad. By the time I reached my 20's and moved to the lower east side which was still gritty, I had a girlfriend that worked a peep booth in Times Square to support her habit. I guess the Disney Mecca is better but I avoid it like the plague. Today I can't even stomach to see teenyboppers holding hands and purchasing $300 handbags.
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