Times Square Amusement, Then and NOT

Some people LOVE how "cleaned up" Times Square is. Really? With its tourist trap fast-food joints, crappy over-priced theme restaurants, stupid Disney rip-off musicals, and chain stores selling junk perfume, shoddy t-shirts and MOBILE PHONES?

The irony of course is not only has Times Square become one big mall of junk, it's STILL dirty. You are more likely than ever to lose your money or get slashed in the face by some psycho-monkey. Mayor De Spazio and his army of retards and monkeys let criminals run loose and put a revolving door on the jails. Rob, rape, slash somebody and you're out the next day, or MAYBE in a month. Cops do nothing about pests panhandling and "rapping" for spare change, and ignore the half-naked or body-painted morons standing around with their tits hanging out.

The square is very unpleasant, clogged by copyright-infringing Latinos hiding inside cartoon and comic book character outfits exploiting stupid tourist-kids for photo ops. How is THAT shit legal? Yet no effort has been made to monitor or license these bastards. "Go ahead, put on a Muppet mask or a Spiderman outfit and harass parents for $5 when the kid comes over and wants a photo taken."

In the "old days" whores weren't IN Times Square. People weren't selling dirty magazines on street corners. It's better now that it's Latina bitches in body paint, and con artists offering counterfeit tickets to shows? It's worse now, because there's this veneer of safety: "It's cleaned up, you can go there and not worry." You were LESS likely to have problems 30 years ago, because you knew to be on your guard on those few streets you deliberately came to visit.

Pictures of OLD and NEW Times Square are supposed to make us feel SO happy about modern progress. Here's a photo of a few tawdry bookstores on 42nd Street, replaced by a soulless corporation selling selfie-smells and fashion foolery and a Disney theater showing trite tourist trifles.

What these "Then and NOW" pieces DON'T do is show you the truth. Who ran the bookstores? Ordinary middle-aged white guys. Many had families, lived on Long Island, and were just getting along, selling items others needed. They were polite, minded their own business, and the customers were mostly the same.

Go there during the day, and these bookstores were very ordinary, like any used bookstores or charity shops. PS, there wasn't a solid fucking street full of them. While there were plenty of peep shows and adult bookstores there were also novelty shops selling magic tricks. There were record stores and back-date magazine places, and plenty of junky-bargain stores for fun browsing. PLUS there were actual "amusement" galleries where you'd play ski-ball or pinball.

Things were cheap, too. "Hubert's Museum" had free exhibits (like paintings on the head of a pin) which made it far better than the Ripley's Believe it Or Not and Madame Tussaud's chains, which cost a fortune, and are loaded with screaming brats and moronic ethnic tourists. Today's tourist-trap museums charge $30 to get in (or $20 if you've got a coupon). That's not a good deal if you have to walk out in 10 minutes because you can't stand all the noise and jerks. Go into "Hubert's Museum" or a pinball arcade and it was free.

"Times Square" covers a lot of territory. "Deep Throat/Devil In Miss Jones" played on 7th Avenue and 47th. Those porn theaters were far removed from the ones on the measly TWO blocks of notorious 42nd Street (between Broadway and 8th Avenue). These theaters weren't harming anyone. All around 'em were pinball arcades, cheap restaurants, "music row" (where you could buy guitars), and plenty of legit Broadway theaters.

What replaced it? A fucking T-Mobile? An over-priced frozen yogurt joint? A crappy "fragrance" store? We all know that certain locations are just...TOURIST TRAPS. The rent is too high for bargains but idiot tourists don't realize it, since they have a poor grasp of the exchange rate.

Here are two more porn theaters, which were on 42nd Street itself. Most "stock photos" of the area seem to show old farts "protesting" the porn area. They were prudish MORONS. Times Square was easy to avoid. Don't wanna walk by dirty bookstores, or see dirty movie theaters? Don't walk down TWO streets, that's all. And ignore a few other streets that had a bookstore or a theater or two. For some 20 years, the "dirty" businesses remained where they were. There was no expansion. There was an L-shaped loop for fans of smut. You'd walk the two blocks of 42nd Street, and then walk another 5 up 8th Avenue where there were some more stores.

By law and common sense, the stores had opaque windows, and the movie theaters had mild photos on display. You saw NOTHING rude unless you went in. And along the way, there were the novelty shops, record shops and other odd and individualistic stores, including ones that sold movie star photos and theatrical costumes.

Now? Now the area is just a damn mall. It's NO safer either, since pickpockets and grifters and panhandlers LOVE tourists. Frankly, had there been no zoning, Times Square's porn shops would've gone under thanks to the INTERNET. How quaint, going to a dirty movie theater. NOBODY does that. Go to some shop to be seen buying porn when it's easier by mail? When much of it is FREE via illegal downloads? Whores? Internet sites have 'em and so do forums, so it's a lot easier to hook up online than proposition street tramps.

Times Square in its slimy prime was an exciting place to be, and yes, that included the element of danger, which was mostly in the eye and the thumping pulse of the beholder.

Today, NYC, Berlin, London, Paris...none have many areas that are "decadent" anymore, or "trouble." Not in the old fashioned sense. What's replaced that decadence is stupidity: nigga fast food joints, gay bars, punk clubs, velvet-rope scumbag rich bastard joints and sports bars and discos. You think you're in a safe area and idiots can pick a fight with you. You "don't belong" on THEIR turf. You're not wearing the right clothes. You're the wrong color. You're looking like a tourist. You have to leave a bar because the price of a mixed drink was an insane price and you didn't think to ask before you ordered. You walk into a store and, unlike the old porn shops, the manager immediately accosts you with "Can I help you" and follows you if you say "just looking," making sure you don't just enjoy the environment and musing on what idiot people spend their money on.

The pursuit of happiness IS a depressing, futile, creepy thing in today's AMUSEMENT districts. Anyone who thinks it's better than how it was during the years of adult bookstores in Times Square is a fucking clueless idiot who wasn't even there.