Times Square ca. 1985
This image is very similar to this one on Vintage NYC, who date the photograph around 1985
There was a time when New York was upfront. Times Square may have been dangerous (in a pick-pocket sort of way, not terrorist bombers of this era), but it kept you on your toes, and made you realize that you were not in some paradise. It was, in a way, a metaphor for life.
Now, what you have is Disney. But mingled with bombs.
I prefer the old Times Square.
Oz Conservative writes about this in his post His dream is not my dream, which about a writer who says he wants the old New York of:
...a massive ecosystem of gay, lesbian, transgender, BDSM and plain old sleazy heterosexual hangouts: clubs, bars, dancehalls, cabarets and all the dim-lit alleyways and grassy knolls inbetween.At least debauchery was debauchery, in those days.
Now we have Disney stores, giant characters from children's books accosting pedestrians, movie theaters which have taken the danger inside, call girls advertising in the back pages of local papers for Times Square hotels, and any one of the pedestrians carrying a bomb laced with religion?
So which is better, an upfront debauchery, which we can avoid, and at times sympathize with, if only to get its prisoners out, or one where its all camouflaged with the bright cheeriness of Disney?
And would anyone make movies about or around Times Square anymore, other than a multi-million sterile Disney film riding on the backs of innocent children?
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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