A week or so ago in class, we read/talked about Times Square as a singular film location – the area as it existed in the 1960s being associated with sexploitation films. As someone who moved to New York in the late 1990s, I have only heard of what Times Square was like at the time – the seedy, grimy underbelly of the city, where peddlers of sex and drugs ruled the day. It conjures up images from Taxi Driver, and brings to mind what Travis Bickle so wanted to cleanse the city of.
Fast forward some 40+ years, the area is quite different now. It does appear to be cleaned up. We don’t see the sex shops and peep shows, though apparently they are are still around – if you know where to find them. It is also free of the drug peddlers, as the NYPD has cracked down on them over the years, and at a few different locations in the city. Then again, a lot of New York is relatively crime free in the last decade or so, because there are always cops on the street, to ward off a completely different kind of threat – the threat of terrorism.
But how really different is Times Square? I was there just 2 days ago – in the midst of the Wednesday matinee rush on Broadway. It was buzzing with tourists, and some locals for sure. There was rampant commercialism on display – with the all the big stores, and the neon signs for films and TV shows, all in bright daylight!
And then there were the topless girls wandering around, mixed in with the crowd. I think they are the female counterpart to the naked cowboy who strangely enough, was missing. I realized I haven’t been in the neighborhood for a while – and so was seeing it in its current avatar. It is seemingly a little cleaned up – at least superficially. But is it dirty, crowded – yes. Is it wholesome – no.
It is the mecca of commercialism, it still peddles sex albeit in a different fashion. But then that is what makes Times Square what it is – a vibrant, energetic space that draws so many people from other countries and other parts of the US. If anything, it probably draws more people than before because they feel safer wandering about there?
