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As Times Square looks at new ways to market to the masses, the nostalgic long for the days that neon signs were selling a very, very different thing. Jeremiah's Vanishing New York has just found some photos of the area from the 1990s, and he says, "I used to love walking up and down 42nd Street between Broadway and 8th. The sidewalks were unclogged by tourists and there were no peddlers begging to sketch your caricature or write your name on a grain of rice. The only barkers barking called out, 'Girls, girls, girls, one dolla, one dolla, one dolla.'" And of course the ladies and the lack of tourists weren't the only thing different; he recalls the buildings being lower and constructed of brick, saying, "They were human-sized, manageable."
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No N/W trains between Queensboro and Ditmars as of 8:15.
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Love it!
Miss it!
i miss the arcades where i'd go after work in my suit & play video games next to drug dealers who eventually accepted me & greeted my arrival with the silent head nod.
That's back when Asians were Orientals!
To think that a lot of the newbies and Yunnies, as they sit on their lawn chairs provided by the BID, prefer the Disneyland Times Square we have today to this!
In 20 years people will be wondering what the fuck happened to this once great city... No more cars, lawn chairs in the street, and Disney merchandise crawling out of the asses of fanny pack wearing bloated tourists
Drugs, hookers and nonstop crime were great? Also, no one buys porn in a store anymore, so most of those places would be gone anyway.
why do we talk about pedestrian walkways and disney in the same breath? pedestrian walkways are good for porn consumers too. and disney is a kind of evil that has nothing to do with what they are displacing.
really? nostalgia for the 90's? really?
the real problem is that porn and sex work attracts a criminal element, because we regard it as morally problematic. if we'd just unpuritan everything, we could have porn stores and peepshows without the crime. ideal!
So pretty much the seediness of the 90's was as undesirable as Times Square is today? I'll take neither and forever avoid the neighborhood!
Yes I understand the Disneyification is a troubling trend towards creating a lame and sterile city, but at least that murder rate is down. Maybe the Great Recession will turn it into a shithole again.
now people have to get their porn from the internet, so sad.
best comment all week
funny how the only thing left from the Old Times Square
are those bait and switch, tourist trap and going out of business electronic shops.
I guess they didn't have color cameras WAY BACK in the 90s! It was a simpler time...
To make it period authentic, photos of that era should have very saturated colors a la Fuji Velvia.
It was a dump with tons of crime. Oh, the good old days. Hey who knows the way things are going maybe we can bring it back.
New York, New York, the rotten core of America.
I still remember when I was a 13 year old when I went to see Mortal Kombat in 1995 and was just in shock at the wall-to-wall porn shops everywhere. I thought it was interesting and weird.
Which is the same feeling I get with the new Times Square...well without the interesting part.
I remember walking with my cousin through the Port Authority before hopping on a bus, and saw a homeless guy stab another homeless guy in the eye.
Ahh...the good ol' "Devil's Playground" days..
I'm ashamed to say but I miss those peepshows where you could cop a good feel (of a very well endowed young lady) for only a buck(!).....
The 90's? Times Square was already sanitized (by comparison) by the the time the 90's rolled in. You have to go back to the late 70's to really get the full impact, back when the peep joints were wall-to-wall, from 6th Ave. to 8th, and from the mid-30's to the mid-40's on 8th where the hookers strolled by day and night like they were on a catwalk. Porn stars signed autographed photos in the lobbies of movie theaters on Broadway, with lines that wrapped around the block. I'm not kidding. In fact, I still have my autographed Annette Haven photo....ooops! And the peep joints were open all night. "C'mon guys, hold the magazines with both hands! You bend 'em, you bought 'em!" Oh yeah, and the Terminal Bar on 8th across from the old Port Authority Bus Terminal. Ohhh man! Abandon hope all ye who..... Ahhh memories!
the 1990s are too soon.
but honestly it was crap then, and it's a different smelling crap today.
i don't understand the nostalgia for the seedy past of NY.
it was dangerous, filthier, more racially tense. the government was broke, and walking down a dark street at night by yourself was an insane thing to do.
i dont' miss it.
i dont' like it very much now, but at least i dont' feel like i need to act tough just to get some groceries.
i think those people that are nostalgic are basing it on television portrayal and romanticizing of the subculture of the time period. not the reality of day to day living....
here is a great video of the authentic times square of yore.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS7Q3tcnHWM
Flashback 90s?
Oh, man, I almost thought it was last week.
You mean to tell me I'm getting old?
I got our of high school...did internships...went to college...
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how could anyone be nostalgic for the 90s or times square or both. Times square is a hell hole. I had to walk through on my way to work, it is the bane of my existence.
Seriously, get nostalgic for a part of new york that matters.