Times Square in the 1970s

[palitoy]

That's a lotta porno! This is what my dad still thinks it looks like.

https://viewing.nyc/maggie-hopps-color-photographs-of-times-square-in-the-1970s/

[daz71]

it looks pretty sleazy i didn't recognize any of the film titles.

[Mikey]

42nd Street was nasty too

[TrekStar]

First thing that came to my mind was, Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle wandering the sleazy streets
of New York and this is what he saw, what? no megos?

I recognize the last pic, shows the fllm Guy's and Dolls, Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando, and the backdrop in
that movie is Times Square, old blues eyes has been everywhere.

[CrimsonGhost]

I feel like some of these were still there in the early 90's. Now Times Square and 42nd Street look like Disneyland.

[GlobalObserver]

https://cdn.viewing.nyc/assets/34e7f7df-18bb-480c-996a-f6a684c9795a/image-10-f482d0f6764c83ec3bd67fd16088a666.jpg

John Leguizamo hasn't changed all that much in 40 years.

[cjefferys]

Heh, I read that link last week, lots of great colour pics! I love seeing photos like this, I really wish I got a chance to see Times Square during that period but I was way too young of course. So much wonderful sleeze!

[Wee67]

I didn't really start going to NYC until the 80's and even then we generally stayed in the Village and over near Alphabet City to see bands or buy records.

Seeing these pictures makes me laugh about the New Yorkers who decry the "Disney-fication" of Times Square and yearn for the days when Times Square was more "New York." Yeah, Times Square is now filled with chain stores and restaurants, but that is waaay better the skank-fest it had become.

[Mikey]

When about did they clean it up ?

I went there on a class trip in '78 and it was still scummy then

[Confessional]

Oh it was still interesting and seedy through the 80's when I first ventured to NYC… a great mix of indy record shops, street peddlers and performers, graf artists, instrument stores, comics and magazines, clothing, cheap electronics and smut. The crime of the period withstanding, I'd take that any day over its contemporary marketing-ad-nauseam selfie-orgy of family entertainment [sic].

Fun facts about NY: http://www.nyhistory.org/community/t...uare-peep-show

[Nostalgiabuff]

they cleaned up the city in the late nineties. closed down all the peep shows and such, got "rid" of a lot of the homeless....meaning shuffled off somewhere else. but they did clean up a lot of the sleaze aspect

[mego maniac mark]

Ah, the good ole days.lol

[EmergencyIan]

There is still a little bit of that stuff on 8th Ave in Times Square.

- Ian

[cjefferys]

Not that Toronto was ever anywhere near what 70's-80's Times Square or 42nd Street was like, but I miss the sleazy businesses that used to line Yonge Street downtown. It was an eye opening experience for a visiting small town young lad like myself.

[HardyGirl]

I remember some of the kids in my class nicknamed Time Square (or just plain 42nd St) "Prossy's Prey" when I was in the 6th grade.