Good Times back . You could see a legit double feature on the deuce for 6 bucks, get a Nathan's hot dog for $1 and you didn't have to spend your ENTIRE fucking paycheck on rent back then. 42nd had character and even with the sleaze element, I preferred it to what it is now!
Don't understand the folks bitching about the music.... IMHO it PERFECTLY compliments the filth and squalor of "The Deuce" back in the day---(and yes, it was a SHITHOLE!!)
I was in my early 20s back then. We would go down to Times Square, get a little high and drunk and just wander around until the sun came up. I can still remember the sounds, the people, the smells like it was yesterday. It was almost surreal. Glad I was there!
I was a teenager living in northern New Jersey in the 1970s. Driving through the Lincoln Tunnel into NYC was like crossing over into another universe. The action and vibe at that time were beyond description. I even met Johnny Thunders sauntering down the street one time!!!
I feel like Thunders was the face of all of this. My interest and admiration for him, the Heartbreakers, Dee Dee Ramone, and the NY Dolls is what piqued my interest in this area and time period. It's like the internet has allowed the world to keep on being perverted and dirty...but sent it back behind closed doors. The late 60s through late 80s/early 90s had sex, drugs and other pleasure seeking events bubbling over into the streets. People now say it feels like the end times, but imagine being around back then? The streets were filled with used syringes, feces, sex advertisements, blood...if people today even tripped and made contract with the ground back then, they would be panicking and getting tested for HIV. 35mm film and tube amps captured the feeling for us all. Long live rock and roll baby! Being born in 88 made me miss all of this by just 7 or 8 years.
I am 52yo old and remember Times SQ back in the seedy days It wasn't a place for young children to go like it is today. I think most people were lost and tried to find themselves through drugs alcohol and sex.I started going to 42st when I was 16 and continued till go today now, I think its safer and cleaner. I think peoples manners and styles have gone down hill. People aren't as friendly as they use to be. No one speaks English, The hipsters are arrogant and boring. No classy Americans, they are gone.
+Bruce Andersen True. Their are no cool people or true artists in NY today. There is nothing cool about today's generation in NY. Anyone who was cool is either dead, close to death, pushed out and priced out by corporate scum real estate whores. It's most of NY like that now. The Village is fucking lame now. Not like the 60s or 70s.
You think people were nice in the 80s you must out.to gotdamn mind ..the same.exact morons that were pricks in the 80s are the same in 2021 i thankfully seen them back then..what goes around comes around
Illegal, illicit sex is most abominable. But either illicit or legal, there are so many sufferings. So many sufferings. Illegal-now they are giving opportunity, abortion, killing the child, and so on, go to the hospital. That is also. And behind that, the killing the child, a very sinful, he has to suffer. We do not know. Ananta-duḥkhaṁ ca na veda mūḍhaḥ. He's taking the risk of suffering life after life. Those who are killing the child within the womb, they will be punished. They will also enter within the womb of the mother, and somebody will kill, and again he will enter another mother's womb; again he'll be killed. So as many child he has killed, he has to go to the womb of the mother to another womb, another. He will never see the light of the world. He'll be killed. This is the punishment. This is the punishment. But we do not know. This area of NYC, the greatest city of the world, shows the worst ignorance of human form of life. I was no stranger there, but also a great saint arrived in NYC, also penniless and with no friend, he began chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa in Tompkins square park. Now it's global.
Minus the graffiti on the subway trains, I think it looked better than now! At least it had a unique character. Now New York City looks like a giant boring mall with the same stores you see in every city: macy's, Bloomingdale, Banana republic, TGIF you name it................
I wish someone had taken a video camera down into the seedy subway stations of the early 70;s ----it was a living hell....non working vending machines...dimly lit dirty walls, rats (well that hasnt changed) , graffiti covered trains, and walls, garbage all over the floors, burned out bathrooms..where the film lol
A hotel room in times Square for 50 bucks. I remember going down 42nd street in the early 80s. It was like seeing ancient Rome at its height with your own eyes. Like the wild west. I'm so glad I was born here. I miss the old new York it was the most unbelievable awesome place.
oh, it was. but if you got out of midtown, went downtown, it was very lively and interesting--not as dangerous as midtown. one place you did NOT go was 42nd and 8th ave, or lower. that was real hookerville. a few streets down, on 10 ave, is where the hookers used to hang out who would go with johns through the Lincoln Tunnel (they didn't work around the Holland or the GWB.) kind of creepy actually.
I miss it deeply. It was very exciting. NY used to be a Dream of excitement and intensity. Not now. 42nd St was great because it was so lit up at night with that specific kind of light from artificial sources, an alternate daytime. Like a carnival but in Manhattan instead of the country, with gum on the sidewalk instead of straw. And the lights buzzed, which made it very Sci Fi especially if you were tripping. You didn't have to be a complete degenerate to appreciate it but it helped.
Warriors never went topside at Times Square...In fact, they only got out for one fight against The Punks and hopped back on the train to Brooklyn! Know your fake history, bro.
Born and raised in Brooklyn and I'm only 39 but I remember as a kid walking thru 42nd with my dad, and clearly as yesterday I remember seeing tourists getting robbed dudes fighting and stabbings plus the drugs were everywhere on the open. Love them days I swear it sucks so much these days people just walk around like zombies, no more interactions with people. Just with their cell phones.
I remember one porno theater in the upper 40's where they would put HUGE shots of the copulation over the entrance of the theater and then would paint "underwear" over the actors so they could say; "No. They're not having sex! They're dressed, see?"
I live in NYC and I’m older than you. People getting robbed and stabbed wasn’t there for your entertainment. Granted a lot of things were more interesting in the city back then but missing people being victimized right in front of you and preferring that to people having cell phones makes no sense unless you’re sociopathic. I also think you’re exaggerating the kinds of things you saw and it wasn’t happening in front of you on the daily.
This video is the Times Square I remember as a kid in the mid 80’s big change from the Uber-clean touristy place you see now. No bleacher seating or naked cowboys or Batman, begging dollars. It was a wild place where the only rule was be smarter than the next guy and you could do whatever you wanted, buy whatever you wanted, guns, drugs, whatever, or get beat by all manner of con men. It was scary, fascinating and great.
Glad to have stayed at 49th & 10th in ‘85 when I was 17 on a school trip from Ottawa, Canada. It was pretty scuzzy but it was amazing! Haven’t been back since to Disney York.
Really recommend HBOs „The Deuce“ (from David Simon; who also created „The Wire“). Not only is it a great story with great characters, its also such a well done, detailed homage on this area in the 70s. You really get a feeling for how crazy, fucked up but also interesting it must have been
Vertigo Mindwarp Don't go it sucks now. I've lived in NY all my life. If you like sterile chain stores and Disneyland you will love it. No hip or cool culture anymore. Nothing cutting edge or cool anymore. All the cool people are gone or dead.
+Vertigo Mindwarp No, different than Haight and Ashbury. Things change with the times. Wouldn't you as a mayor like to have as many presentable neighborhoods as possible?
Yeah man it was awesome back then, was a thrill. I lived in NJ and worked in the city always made it a point walking down 42 street,Could always get anything you wanted, but had to be careful got ripped-off a few timed to lol, it had a different feel at 6am after getting off the bus at the port authority and heading for work as well.At night was filled with suspense and adventure.
I'm 46 ,I went there with my high school friends around 1990 and I just remember being blown away by all of the neon signs ,sex joints and midget pimps! I think that's why I fell in love with Las Vegas.
I remember getting stoned with my friends and going down to times square.the adventure started when we got on the subway then into the peep shows and porn movies.seen all kinds of ungodly shit dude.smh.we did that every weekend.
I was homeless in Times Square during the late '50s. It was easy then. Movies (not porn) cost a quarter and one could sleep in the balcony without being hassled. Salvation Army meals were also 25¢ (or you could suffer through a prayer meeting and eat for free. Police harassment was minimal and crime was highly exaggerated. BTW, If you lived in a hotel, then you weren't homeless.
Had an older cousin who worked as a manager of a movie theater on the deuce. As a teenager it became clear what the allure was. Fascinating piece of Americana, time square, the deuce - danger, sex, drugs, freaks, fast food - heaven…..
i recently took my first trip to SanFrancisco and booked a Hotel online....in the tenderloin district. Probably should've done a little more research of the neighborhood b4 just clicking on the cheapest hotel i could find
WOW! Thanks for making this fantastic clip. I remember taking the train to this area from New England..young guys in our 20's..stepping out to the surreal of NYC…the smells…the people..it was like a fantasy world..then we'd hop back on the train home and save up our dollars so we could do it all over again!
@@MisterMel92 It was a combination of things. Those food carts, faint smells of weed, urine, cigarettes, cheap perfume, car exhaust, and who knows what else.
I knew Times Square in the late 80's and early 90's. Seedy and dirty, yes, but also so full of life, and so much fun. Times Square has become tame and polite. That's progress, I guess: more normality. On the other hand, it was chaotic and fun. With time, everything changes
Great times on the Deuce. Cheap, dirty fun at every turn. No dirty, asexual midwestern hipsters bumping into you with their hemp man purses. No overpriced chain restaurants and wax museums. Just seedy peep shows, three card monty dealers and a $3 steak dinner at Tad's. Great post.
+PO Felcher True. You just had to know how to watch yourself back then. The sense of danger and grittiness did make it exciting. People weren't overly conscious about everything back then like today. Everything is so prissy and sanitized. People are like fucking brain dead robots. People knew how to have fun. NYC was a playground then with something for everyone
I walked all the scary places from 1959 to '96. Had two brushes with 'crime'. 1am, near Port Authority Bus Terminal, two guys came up on each side of me. "Give me a dollar!" "If I had a dollar, I'd be on the train." "Oh. OK.",... and they were gone. The other time, also in the middle of the night, a scary looking dude flashed a toy badge at me: "Police. Come here!" I kept walking: "If you keep that up, you're going to get in trouble." For girls, it was probably more dangerous.
Peter Crowley doesn't matter how much you wanna exaggerate the " back in my day" stories, you can't argue the facts. NYC was a terrible place to live in the 90s with crime rates higher than ever and crack everywhere.. it was an awful place for children to grow up and go to school... Maybe it would've been"interesting" to see but you'd quickly realize its cost.
I would love to do a time travel visit for a couple of days to 1970s NYC.Not for more than that though, it all seems very cool and exciting, but in the end, alot more people were getting hurt back then, and thats not something I think anyone should revisit.
The day I landed in the U.S. in 1986 I thought Broadway/42nd Street might be a cool place to visit. It was 90 degrees, early afternoon so I thought it'd be safe. It was quite intimidating, porn movies playing on small screens to the street with kids watching them, weird people trying to accost you for God knows what reason, drugs being openly sold within yards of a Police station - glad I was there to see that side of New York, equally glad I didn't get mugged. Many fond memories otherwise!
There's just something about this...I lived there late 80s-early 90s. Here for a bit and Alphabet City which I think the zombie latte swillin kale chewin hipsters call Clinton now. Ugh. They ruined it. Yes, it was gritty and scary but it's something that some artists needed to thrive and create. I know I did. My most inspired work came from living this.
I used to hate walking down 42nd Street those days. There was always some drug dealing punk trying to sell me drugs. The place was full of hookers, pimps and every other riffraff you can think of. I like it a lot better now.
Not sure of which riff raff I prefer. The slime or the rude tourists that think being rude is the NYC way. There are still plenty of hustlers to bother you there. This time they wear Disney costumes and other superhero costumes. they hustle you to take a picture with them and then bother you for a tip. If the tip is too small, they hassle you.
Nyc sucks now. I would take the old New York any day of the week over the bullshit that is there now. It's unaffordable, times sq is full of tourists and criminals wearing Elmo costumes. The rest of the city is made up of yuppies and finance pricks.
Matt G You are half right there. It's really expensive to live here, but Times Square has always been full of tourists and criminals. The best thing they've done on 42nd Street is get rid of those porno movies. There were prostitutes and pimps all over the streets, making the place look filthy and cheap. Glad they're no longer in that area.
bklynAtrain: The porno shops, T-shirt shops and head shops would have disappeared anyway, due to the VCR making porn available on tape just like that and the Internet making it easy to buy both porn and things like T-shirts (as well as crackdowns on things like head shops, and one being able to buy bongs online.)
Michael Morelli: So you preferred being mugged and told to give all of your money or end up getting stuck in the ribs with a knife, huh? Misery sure loves company.
Walking through 42 st was an adventure. You never know what or who you would run into. And you could literally buy anything you could think of,as long as you had the money.
The thing to remember is that there were diamonds under the dreck. Historic theaters with magnificent architecture bloomed from the 1890's to the 1920's and most except for a handful survived and were returned to their previous glory. Four theaters were demolished to put up the Marquis Theater in the 1980's and there were large protests in the theater community to try to prevent it.
Some footage from the movie ''Shaft' (1971). Other stuff mid 70s & later. I grew up & lived in NYC from 1960-93 then 1996-2001. I saw enough of the raunchy TS, enough already but the massive clean up went way too far. You want raunch, try other cities.
The MUSIC!!!! The Soul! The spirit. Where has it all gone.... I’m sorry but not sorry to say or feel ... but this is what I think, and remember of NYC. Driving up from Baltimore to visit my “crazy” mother’s numerous art and uncouth friends who dared live there doing what they loved on the cheap. It’s all gone now.
Unless you lived it, you wouldn't believe that in the mid-70's,'The Deuce' was the real American juice. (Now its marketed as a tourist amusement park.)
it's so fascinating how places can change! my first visit to the us and nyc was in 2009. but as a huge fan of 70/80ies trash and grindhouse movies I would love to travel back in time and see this weird place for my own. Maybe some eyewitness could tell something about "old" nyc and the "deuce" here?
this was back when people would look at you weirdly for wanting to move to NYC. now it’s the place to go. I would love to time travel back to check out the music scenes in their prime, like disco and punk.
I remember walking down Times Square looking at the marquees. One of them was for the movie made of Harlan Ellison's short story; "A Boy and His Dog." I guess they didn't think this would fly on Times Square of the '70s because they'd changed the poster and the marquee to read; "A PYSCHO Boy and His KILLER Dog!"
As a 20 year old from Minnesota visiting Times Square in 1977, I could not believe the incredible sleeziness of it. I had never seen anything like it. Of course we'll never see anything like that again. Those days are long gone. I visited NYC last year and it looked like a different city. It's certainly a cleaner, more maintained and a much more safe feeling city today than I remember from 1977.
@@robs5688 and it will only get worse. the baby boomer generation of cops were real men who werent afraid to take care of business this generation of millenial gen z cops are nowhere as tough as those cops from back in the day
@@bb-gc2txNot true. NYC crime rate is relatively low. The biggest complaint about NYC is not crime, it’s how expensive it’s become because actually gotten nicer
this is how i will always remember it. i miss it. it was an adventure for a young man. sex & drugs & ... i lived a few blocks south of times square in the '80s.
Ha! All the people dreaming of the days when New York had character. So if I get this straight your complaint is that your city is too safe and clean. What a bunch of fools you guys are. If your really want a bit of the old grime back why not just move to Detroit. That city is far from gentrified. I'd say I hope you get your wish, because that would be the best punishment that could be inflicted upon you, but I have friends who live in New York. Keep complaining that things are too good...
These scenes were shot largely from about (about) 1978 to 1983. Gentrification really started to hit Times Square hard in the early 1990s. Though the clean up was slowly proceeding throughout the late 1980s, the clean up was arguably completed by the late 1990s. A marvelous book on the Times Square of the 1970s and 80s is called 'Tales of Times Square' by Josh Alan Friedman. Don't miss this book.
Bullshit, as usual. Gentrification really started to hit Times Square a couple years after Giuliani became mayor in 1994, you nutcase. Get your facts right. NYC was at its seediest for almost 30 years - starting with John Lindsay in the late 1960s to the mid 1990s when NYC was starting to get cleaned up by Giuliani. The first sign of Times Square getting Disneyfied/Gentrified was when the musical Beauty and the Beast play opened on Broadway on April 18, 1994 -- 3 months into Giuliani's first term as mayor. If you want to get technical though, Bloomberg is who really Gentrified NYC. All Giuliani did was made NYC safe with the crime rates going down, more police presence, and cleaned it up. During Dinkins’ four years as mayor, crime skyrocketed. In 1990 (his first year in office), the number of murders reached a staggering 2,245. The number hovered around (or near) 2,000 for the next three years. In 1993, it was 1,946. In 1994 (Giuliani’s first year in office) it was 1,561 -- and crime has been going down ever since. The gritty NYC era was with Lindsay, Beame, Koch, and Dinkins. Obviously, during the early 1990s (1990 to 1993) aka the Dinkins years, NYC was still gritty. No signs of Gentrification at all.
Judged by the amount of street walking prostitutes in Times Sq, the early 1990s were much, much less gritty than the late 1960s to mid 1980s period. As Friendman's book points out, in the 1970s it wasn't unusual to see a thousand (1,000!) old-school style hookers walking the streets of T Sq -- now that's gritty. By the early 1990s there wasn't anything even remotely close to that number (though of course there was still a lively street walkers' scene). Sure, the actual gentrification per see really didn't take off till the mid 1990s, but by '93 many of the old "movie theaters" were being shut down (not all of course). Look over Josh Alan Friedman's book "Tales of Times Square" it's an amazing read. We're sort of splitting hair here in certain respects between the early 90s and mid 90s it's hairsplitting that really doesn't warrant your tone of "b.s. as usual."
+Drew Hunkins wow. the same stupid bullcrap from you as usual. I love how morons like you assume that NYC in the early-mid 90s was not the same how it was in the late 60- 80s. NYC changed in the late 90s and early 2000s.
yes, what was the "red light district" is gone now. In the same area you now have some very big, plush theaters. They took the old ones and restructured the insides, making them into multiplexes. There's also a Discovery Center, run by the Discovery Channel, and a Madame Tussaud's Was Museum. Never thought I'd see one of those there. One of the last ones to go was Show World, where they used to have live sex shows. Oh, and some of the theaters were turned into office buldings. usually there's a Starbuck's there, but you can't really recognize the theaters. The TImes Square and 42nd area is now full of people dressed in character costumes trying to hook the tourists. We went from one kind of hooker to another, if you think about it. There's still a real seedy vibe around there though, like bad juju. It's where the MTV studios are, and all the lights. Makes me wonder what the land was like back before the Dutch settlers came. Was it like a burial ground or a swamp? I always wonder. No matter how they try to clean it up, literally or figuratively, it's still awful. I'd hate to work in the Forever 21 or other suburban shopping mall stores that are now around there--and if any of the workers go from a mall to midtown, they're going to get some severe culture shock. You can still spot the hooker or two -- usually if you spot a very young woman in breakneck high heels and a really short skirt, by herself, or talking to one guy, she's probably a hooker. Usually young people will hang out in groups, esp if they're coming in from the surrounding areas or are tourists. I'm not sure if there's even any SRO hotels around there anymore, and, if there are, they're way more low key they used to be in the sleazy old days.
The Track fits like a rubber !- Acid Rock at it's core - as for todays folks they'de be clipped like fuckin' pidgeons being so focused on them damn phones I- what nots!
NYC..We would trip up to NYC from Philly on the weekends in the 70's and torch 42nd street. Man we came back burnt down and I am talking singed. Place could have never existed even as my mind and body experienced the action. Next week....'69' Charger packed and heading north. Wooooooo. You missed the world if you never went.
i couldn't make it through the whole vid. too emotional for me. man, do i miss the NYC. there is no reason to go into the city anymore. there really isn't.
Beautiful to this Cali dude. Wish I'd live in this Generation. while others were flockin to SF, definitely would have went East. Can only imagine the heat in the city at that time.
It was a wonderful time despite the creepiness of Times Square. Young girls would often disappear if they went to the Playland arcade. Other than that it was nice
@mrclutch88 mr clutch i was in new york a few days ago and I saw a homeless man wrestlign and doing karate on an imaginary oppoenent right near madison sqaure gerden. I swear to you and all who read this, there are still crazy people in new york.
It fuckin pains me to see these images of Times Sq/42nd of the 1970s. I was born in 1979 so by the time i was old enough to get out to the City on my own in the late 1990s this was already "cleaned up." I am obsessed with things 1970s... especially New York City. I live in the tri-state area so I make it to the city, myself, at least 2x a year. I love the City dearly but there was just something special and unique about the grit and grime of this period that can't be duplicated or overshadowed.
When I was in high school during the 1980s we used to drive through the Lincoln Tunnel (we were from NJ) and hang out all night in the 42nd street area drinking open containers right in front of NYPD. Great to people watch the pimps, drug dealers, junkies, drunks and hookers. But we always prayed to get back to NJ safely as the side streets were full of muggers.
bigart1993 I remember walking out of the port authority one summer night in 1985 and was blown away at how awesome ny was. The burned out buildings across the street. The zombie drug addicts and homeless. The city was so full of characters. Pick pockets and thieves. What a wonderful place. Now you’ve got white collar criminals steeling far more money and somehow that’s not a problem. Miss the old days so much.
The song is called "Street" by Egor.
Thank you
Bad ass jam
I saved this clip just for that song.
Fucking sick!
Wow thats heavy. Were they big?
This is the Times Square Hipsters and Yuppies would've never survived
I was there in ‘83 during a garbage strike. I was 20 year old punk from the South Side of Chicago. It was scary.
@@zellah 5:55 lmao, i only visited nyc once in my life, times square 1989 new years, the whole place smelled like urine, vomit, and sh!t, never again
These are the original hippies and yuppies
Times SQ looked so desperate back then. I used to walk through it from Columbus Circle!😶🌫️
All my friends who have gone there have no clue that the Times Square I talk about is not the Disneyland they visit!!!!
RIP Times Square. You were truly one of the best parts of NYC during the 70's and 80's.
Good Times back . You could see a legit double feature on the deuce for 6 bucks, get a Nathan's hot dog for $1 and you didn't have to spend your ENTIRE fucking paycheck on rent back then.
42nd had character and even with the sleaze element, I preferred it to what it is now!
Cheapest movie on 42nd Street in 1960 was 25¢. A real meal at Bickford's was about $1.25.
Oh wow, that's like Heaven!
Joe L More like Hell
I saw a triple bill of Women in Prison movies there
for $5 in 1986
Speaking as a native New Yorker, as seedy as it was in the 70's, it's more of a cesspool now. I wish I could go back in a time machine to those days!
Don't understand the folks bitching about the music.... IMHO it PERFECTLY compliments the filth and squalor of "The Deuce" back in the day---(and yes, it was a SHITHOLE!!)
I was in my early 20s back then. We would go down to Times Square, get a little high and drunk and just wander around until the sun came up. I can still remember the sounds, the people, the smells like it was yesterday. It was almost surreal. Glad I was there!
Any street characters that have stuck in your mind ever since?
@@joseantoniomoch4006 maybe the Times square killer ......on Netflix there,s a docu about IT. ...
@@starpoint78 just watching this now, absolute mad place in the 70s, I'm from the UK, Americas a mad place anyway now haha
When did it start being seedy? When did it get cleaned up?
@@fleadoggreen9062 Not sure but my guess is sometimes in the 60s. It got cleaned up sometimes around the later 80s.
I was a teenager living in northern New Jersey in the 1970s. Driving through the Lincoln Tunnel into NYC was like crossing over into another universe. The action and vibe at that time were beyond description. I even met Johnny Thunders sauntering down the street one time!!!
Imust of been amazing & full of fun back in those days..
Yes Wayne it really was. All kinds of people were up for heavy action and meeting other people.
@@robertrogers2264 I wish I could go back & check out those days
My teens too...Essex County NJ
I feel like Thunders was the face of all of this. My interest and admiration for him, the Heartbreakers, Dee Dee Ramone, and the NY Dolls is what piqued my interest in this area and time period. It's like the internet has allowed the world to keep on being perverted and dirty...but sent it back behind closed doors. The late 60s through late 80s/early 90s had sex, drugs and other pleasure seeking events bubbling over into the streets. People now say it feels like the end times, but imagine being around back then? The streets were filled with used syringes, feces, sex advertisements, blood...if people today even tripped and made contract with the ground back then, they would be panicking and getting tested for HIV. 35mm film and tube amps captured the feeling for us all. Long live rock and roll baby! Being born in 88 made me miss all of this by just 7 or 8 years.
That’s the New York I remember! Fuck Disney in fact I saw the The Bird with the Crystal Plumage in the theater shown in this video. How cool.
People used to be scared going to 42nd st back in the 70's. It was fun for me when i was a kid. I loved it.
Lucky for you, not for most. I remember as a teen hanging there in the 80s - not nice...
I am 52yo old and remember Times SQ back in the seedy days It wasn't a place for young children to go like it is today. I think most people were lost and tried to find themselves through drugs alcohol and sex.I started going to 42st when I was 16 and continued till go today now, I think its safer and cleaner. I think peoples manners and styles have gone down hill. People aren't as friendly as they use to be. No one speaks English, The hipsters are arrogant and boring. No classy Americans, they are gone.
+Bruce Andersen True. Their are no cool people or true artists in NY today. There is nothing cool about today's generation in NY. Anyone who was cool is either dead, close to death, pushed out and priced out by corporate scum real estate whores. It's most of NY like that now. The Village is fucking lame now. Not like the 60s or 70s.
You think people were nice in the 80s you must out.to gotdamn mind ..the same.exact morons that were pricks in the 80s are the same in 2021 i thankfully seen them back then..what goes around comes around
Illegal, illicit sex is most abominable. But either illicit or legal, there are so many sufferings. So many sufferings. Illegal-now they are giving opportunity, abortion, killing the child, and so on, go to the hospital. That is also. And behind that, the killing the child, a very sinful, he has to suffer. We do not know. Ananta-duḥkhaṁ ca na veda mūḍhaḥ. He's taking the risk of suffering life after life. Those who are killing the child within the womb, they will be punished. They will also enter within the womb of the mother, and somebody will kill, and again he will enter another mother's womb; again he'll be killed. So as many child he has killed, he has to go to the womb of the mother to another womb, another. He will never see the light of the world. He'll be killed. This is the punishment. This is the punishment. But we do not know.
This area of NYC, the greatest city of the world, shows the worst ignorance of human form of life. I was no stranger there, but also a great saint arrived in NYC, also penniless and with no friend, he began chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa in Tompkins square park. Now it's global.
Minus the graffiti on the subway trains, I think it looked better than now! At least it had a unique character. Now New York City looks like a giant boring mall with the same stores you see in every city: macy's, Bloomingdale, Banana republic, TGIF you name it................
@TheZoneRanger Yes indeed. NYC and Vegas lost it's subversive renegade charm when the corporate troglodytes closed in on them.
I wish someone had taken a video camera down into the seedy subway stations of the early 70;s ----it was a living hell....non working vending machines...dimly lit dirty walls, rats (well that hasnt changed) , graffiti covered trains, and walls, garbage all over the floors, burned out bathrooms..where the film lol
I'd give a year of my life for a day on "Forty-duece" circa '77. When time travel is finally a reality it's gonna be one of my first stops....
A hotel room in times Square for 50 bucks. I remember going down 42nd street in the early 80s. It was like seeing ancient Rome at its height with your own eyes. Like the wild west. I'm so glad I was born here. I miss the old new York it was the most unbelievable awesome place.
a picture is worth a thousand words... it was an absolute shit hole.
oh, it was. but if you got out of midtown, went downtown, it was very lively and interesting--not as dangerous as midtown. one place you did NOT go was 42nd and 8th ave, or lower. that was real hookerville. a few streets down, on 10 ave, is where the hookers used to hang out who would go with johns through the Lincoln Tunnel (they didn't work around the Holland or the GWB.) kind of creepy actually.
Yes but I loved it...it was home!
I miss it deeply. It was very exciting. NY used to be a Dream of excitement and intensity. Not now. 42nd St was great because it was so lit up at night with that specific kind of light from artificial sources, an alternate daytime. Like a carnival but in Manhattan instead of the country, with gum on the sidewalk instead of straw. And the lights buzzed, which made it very Sci Fi especially if you were tripping. You didn't have to be a complete degenerate to appreciate it but it helped.
I had great times in NYC. The 60's & 70's when Times Square looked like this video. It was dirty and real.
Warriors come out to play!
Warriors never went topside at Times Square...In fact, they only got out for one fight against The Punks and hopped back on the train to Brooklyn! Know your fake history, bro.
Ikr😄
I’m sure he was referring to the time. Not the actual movie or what transpired in the movie. Duh
I was born in the late 50s. I would go into the city a lot in the early 70s. 42st and TS were a mess. Thanks for sharing this. It was all Smuttville.
Born and raised in Brooklyn and I'm only 39 but I remember as a kid walking thru 42nd with my dad, and clearly as yesterday I remember seeing tourists getting robbed dudes fighting and stabbings plus the drugs were everywhere on the open. Love them days I swear it sucks so much these days people just walk around like zombies, no more interactions with people. Just with their cell phones.
Brooklyngunwild So people getting robbed and drug deals out in the open was a GOOD thing?! wtf is wrong with you...
+snark loaf He's a smug hipster. That's what's wrong with him lol. Probably moved to NY from Ohio on his trust fund...
I remember one porno theater in the upper 40's where they would put HUGE shots of the copulation over the entrance of the theater and then would paint "underwear" over the actors so they could say; "No. They're not having sex! They're dressed, see?"
no its sarcasm you fool
I live in NYC and I’m older than you. People getting robbed and stabbed wasn’t there for your entertainment. Granted a lot of things were more interesting in the city back then but missing people being victimized right in front of you and preferring that to people having cell phones makes no sense unless you’re sociopathic. I also think you’re exaggerating the kinds of things you saw and it wasn’t happening in front of you on the daily.
i couldnt have said it better....i miss the old times square
Brings back many memories. Lived near the Deuce for a number of years when I was a struggling young writer.
You still write ?
@omega Owens It was definitely different.
This video is the Times Square I remember as a kid in the mid 80’s big change from the Uber-clean touristy place you see now. No bleacher seating or naked cowboys or Batman, begging dollars. It was a wild place where the only rule was be smarter than the next guy and you could do whatever you wanted, buy whatever you wanted, guns, drugs, whatever, or get beat by all manner of con men. It was scary, fascinating and great.
Glad to have stayed at 49th & 10th in ‘85 when I was 17 on a school trip from Ottawa, Canada. It was pretty scuzzy but it was amazing! Haven’t been back since to Disney York.
Really recommend HBOs „The Deuce“ (from David Simon; who also created „The Wire“). Not only is it a great story with great characters, its also such a well done, detailed homage on this area in the 70s. You really get a feeling for how crazy, fucked up but also interesting it must have been
Nice one
It was a great time to be living in NYC in the 70s
@@GoHARD99 Man Id imagine. Kinda jealous, when I‘m able to see it live for the first time, it will probably more resemble a theme park lol
@@wazdalos it was crazy but hey it was New York 1970s I live in los angeles now and downtown LA is more old New York than New York is now lol
@@GoHARD99 Haha I believe that
I've not been to NYC but always wanted to go... Only now the New York I wanted to visit doesn't exist anymore
Vertigo Mindwarp No it's not the same, but you should see it anyway!
Vertigo Mindwarp that`s a good thing
Sara Bower In your gentrification lily white mind.
Vertigo Mindwarp Don't go it sucks now. I've lived in NY all my life. If you like sterile chain stores and Disneyland you will love it. No hip or cool culture anymore. Nothing cutting edge or cool anymore. All the cool people are gone or dead.
+Vertigo Mindwarp No, different than Haight and Ashbury. Things change with the times. Wouldn't you as a mayor like to have as many presentable neighborhoods as possible?
Yeah man it was awesome back then, was a thrill. I lived in NJ and worked in the city always made it a point walking down 42 street,Could always get anything you wanted, but had to be careful got ripped-off a few timed to lol, it had a different feel at 6am after getting off the bus at the port authority and heading for work as well.At night was filled with suspense and adventure.
This was back when NYC was actually affordable. Today its unbelievable how anyone can afford to live in that city.
In 96 it was atill affordable you could buy a 1 bedroom for say 50-80 k in manhattan now they are.worth 500k
Wow! That was the NYC in knew and loved.
I often ask kids in their 20's if they've ever seen Taxi Driver. They don't know what the fuck I'm talking about.
Hey I'm watchin ova hea I'm watchin ova hea !!!
+dennis ruley That's "Midnight Cowboy."
I know it was a joke about watching porno in times Square !
dennis ruley Oh, yeah...you wrote "watchin" instead of "walking"...good job...I didn't catch that!!
mitch cumstein You should've told them Hey I'm tawking ova hear I'm tawking ova HEAR!!!
I'm 46 ,I went there with my high school friends around 1990 and I just remember being blown away by all of the neon signs ,sex joints and midget pimps!
I think that's why I fell in love with Las Vegas.
Midget pimps😂
THOSE WERE THE DAYS
I remember getting stoned with my friends and going down to times square.the adventure started when we got on the subway then into the peep shows and porn movies.seen all kinds of ungodly shit dude.smh.we did that every weekend.
The real American Metropolis before Diseny flushed out all the soul, and real people for overpriced chain stores, and clean hipsters.
I was homeless in Times Square during the late '50s. It was easy then. Movies (not porn) cost a quarter and one could sleep in the balcony without being hassled. Salvation Army meals were also 25¢ (or you could suffer through a prayer meeting and eat for free. Police harassment was minimal and crime was highly exaggerated. BTW, If you lived in a hotel, then you weren't homeless.
How old are you now, if you don't mind me asking.
@@Oliphunk 82
I miss the old Duce. It was a real seedy culture. But you learned something from everybody you met in that area good or bad.
Nice Jamie Gillis *Waterpower* clips
Now,there’s someone who knows their stuff. Jamie Gillis. I miss the old Swedish Erotic days.lol.
Had an older cousin who worked as a manager of a movie theater on the deuce. As a teenager it became clear what the allure was. Fascinating piece of Americana, time square, the deuce - danger, sex, drugs, freaks, fast food - heaven…..
Watching this, I can almost smell Times Square in the 70s.
Beautiful garage rockn roll. Love it.
If you want to see what 1970s NYC was like, spend a night in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco - it's like a seedy time-capsule of urban decay.
Like Dave Chapelle said "Ain't nothing tender about the Tenderloin. That shit is rough!!"
@@RyuEnGamer Lol!!!!!!!!!!!
i recently took my first trip to SanFrancisco and booked a Hotel online....in the tenderloin district. Probably should've done a little more research of the neighborhood b4 just clicking on the cheapest hotel i could find
WOW! Thanks for making this fantastic clip. I remember taking the train to this area from New England..young guys in our 20's..stepping out to the surreal of NYC…the smells…the people..it was like a fantasy world..then we'd hop back on the train home and save up our dollars so we could do it all over again!
What were the smells?
@@MisterMel92 It was a combination of things. Those food carts, faint smells of weed, urine, cigarettes, cheap perfume, car exhaust, and who knows what else.
All the "Seediness" has move online
This is so true. There are parts of social media that are like the cesspool Times Square used to be.
I liked it funky. Damn Suits! They're homogenizing the very soul out of the city.
I knew Times Square in the late 80's and early 90's. Seedy and dirty, yes, but also so full of life, and so much fun. Times Square has become tame and polite. That's progress, I guess: more normality. On the other hand, it was chaotic and fun. With time, everything changes
Great times on the Deuce. Cheap, dirty fun at every turn. No dirty, asexual midwestern hipsters bumping into you with their hemp man purses. No overpriced chain restaurants and wax museums. Just seedy peep shows, three card monty dealers and a $3 steak dinner at Tad's. Great post.
+PO Felcher Tad's is still there. The price has gone up a little, but it was 40 years ago.
+PO Felcher True. You just had to know how to watch yourself back then. The sense of danger and grittiness did make it exciting. People weren't overly conscious about everything back then like today. Everything is so prissy and sanitized. People are like fucking brain dead robots. People knew how to have fun. NYC was a playground then with something for everyone
I brought my girl to Tads
That didn't go over well!
@@johnnyoneye2641 those rubbery steaks and hard cold baked taters...not exactly the way to a ladies heart...lol
i would kill for NYC to still be like this..Shame gentrification sucked the soul away
So true 😢
yeah what a shame not enough people are dying and getting raped man..
I walked all the scary places from 1959 to '96. Had two brushes with 'crime'. 1am, near Port Authority Bus Terminal, two guys came up on each side of me. "Give me a dollar!"
"If I had a dollar, I'd be on the train."
"Oh. OK.",... and they were gone.
The other time, also in the middle of the night, a scary looking dude flashed a toy badge at me: "Police. Come here!"
I kept walking: "If you keep that up, you're going to get in trouble."
For girls, it was probably more dangerous.
Peter Crowley doesn't matter how much you wanna exaggerate the " back in my day" stories, you can't argue the facts. NYC was a terrible place to live in the 90s with crime rates higher than ever and crack everywhere.. it was an awful place for children to grow up and go to school... Maybe it would've been"interesting" to see but you'd quickly realize its cost.
My mistake. My brushes with crime occurred in the early '80s.
I would love to do a time travel visit for a couple of days to 1970s NYC.Not for more than that though, it all seems very cool and exciting, but in the end, alot more people were getting hurt back then, and thats not something I think anyone should revisit.
@Shteena S. Sliggnits But more than half of those exciting people you speak of would say prevention is better than the cure.
Time square aka The Duce was very interesting during those times.I miss the Duce.
The day I landed in the U.S. in 1986 I thought Broadway/42nd Street might be a cool place to visit. It was 90 degrees, early afternoon so I thought it'd be safe.
It was quite intimidating, porn movies playing on small screens to the street with kids watching them, weird people trying to accost you for God knows what reason, drugs being openly sold within yards of a Police station - glad I was there to see that side of New York, equally glad I didn't get mugged.
Many fond memories otherwise!
Lol.Its true
There's just something about this...I lived there late 80s-early 90s. Here for a bit and Alphabet City which I think the zombie latte swillin kale chewin hipsters call Clinton now. Ugh. They ruined it. Yes, it was gritty and scary but it's something that some artists needed to thrive and create. I know I did. My most inspired work came from living this.
42nd Street was the most fun in the '50s and early '60s when the porn was under the counter.
My old stomping ground. Had tons of fun before it became Disney.
Democrats are working hard to bring all this back!
Or do you mean the America that Trump wants to bring back to make it great again 😅
Gritty and real now it's polished Mecca for rich.
I miss the hell out of the 42nd street aka Da Duece!!! Good and bad it was a HUGE piece of the flavor of the big apple.
I loved this period. Was living in North Jersey and commuted every day by bus to Port Authority. Very exciting times.
They use show kung fu movies on 42nd street back in the day
The band was called Egor- the song is called "The Street".
I used to hate walking down 42nd Street those days. There was always some drug dealing punk trying to sell me drugs. The place was full of hookers, pimps and every other riffraff you can think of. I like it a lot better now.
Not sure of which riff raff I prefer. The slime or the rude tourists that think being rude is the NYC way. There are still plenty of hustlers to bother you there. This time they wear Disney costumes and other superhero costumes. they hustle you to take a picture with them and then bother you for a tip. If the tip is too small, they hassle you.
Nyc sucks now. I would take the old New York any day of the week over the bullshit that is there now. It's unaffordable, times sq is full of tourists and criminals wearing Elmo costumes. The rest of the city is made up of yuppies and finance pricks.
Matt G You are half right there. It's really expensive to live here, but Times Square has always been full of tourists and criminals. The best thing they've done on 42nd Street is get rid of those porno movies. There were prostitutes and pimps all over the streets, making the place look filthy and cheap. Glad they're no longer in that area.
bklynAtrain: The porno shops, T-shirt shops and head shops would have disappeared anyway, due to the VCR making porn available on tape just like that and the Internet making it easy to buy both porn and things like T-shirts (as well as crackdowns on things like head shops, and one being able to buy bongs online.)
Michael Morelli: So you preferred being mugged and told to give all of your money or end up getting stuck in the ribs with a knife, huh? Misery sure loves company.
Walking through 42 st was an adventure. You never know what or who you would run into. And you could literally buy anything you could think of,as long as you had the money.
I miss the sticky floor's in the 25 cent peep booth shows, and the stuffed nickle bags....
We lost so many people to alcohol, Aids, Crack, and other drugs back then not to mention so many people just disappeared all the time.
The thing to remember is that there were diamonds under the dreck. Historic theaters with magnificent architecture bloomed from the 1890's to the 1920's and most except for a handful survived and were returned to their previous glory. Four theaters were demolished to put up the Marquis Theater in the 1980's and there were large protests in the theater community to try to prevent it.
Some footage from the movie ''Shaft' (1971). Other stuff mid 70s & later.
I grew up & lived in NYC from 1960-93 then 1996-2001. I saw enough of the raunchy TS, enough already but the massive clean up went way too far.
You want raunch, try other cities.
Smh. It was real cesspool. In the movie theaters there were pick pockets...lewd acts in the Audience & on the stage. Filthy...glad I experienced it.
The MUSIC!!!! The Soul! The spirit. Where has it all gone.... I’m sorry but not sorry to say or feel ... but this is what I think, and remember of NYC. Driving up from Baltimore to visit my “crazy” mother’s numerous art and uncouth friends who dared live there doing what they loved on the cheap. It’s all gone now.
I thrived well in old NYC - new NYC sux
Jon Anapol were you a rent boy?
Times change man.
No your life sucks
Times Square of the 1970s was much better than all those new buildings and hotels surounding them today! Thanks for the video! It is great!
New York City used to be a wild untamed lion, now sadly it's a domesticated house cat.
Unless you lived it, you wouldn't believe that in the mid-70's,'The Deuce' was the real American juice.
(Now its marketed as a tourist amusement park.)
who did this killer rock music?? I love it.xx
It's called The Street by Egor
This is what it looked like when I left. It wasn't anything to be proud of. Too trashy and depressing. Thank God it changed.
it's so fascinating how places can change! my first visit to the us and nyc was in 2009. but as a huge fan of 70/80ies trash and grindhouse movies I would love to travel back in time and see this weird place for my own.
Maybe some eyewitness could tell something about "old" nyc and the "deuce" here?
Ah, the NYC of my childhood. Always gawked at the 25 cent peep shows ads.
They destroyed the character of Soho in London in exactly the same way.
Believe it or not.some of the best times of my life.
this was back when people would look at you weirdly for wanting to move to NYC. now it’s the place to go.
I would love to time travel back to check out the music scenes in their prime, like disco and punk.
I remember walking down Times Square looking at the marquees. One of them was for the movie made of Harlan Ellison's short story; "A Boy and His Dog." I guess they didn't think this would fly on Times Square of the '70s because they'd changed the poster and the marquee to read; "A PYSCHO Boy and His KILLER Dog!"
As a 20 year old from Minnesota visiting Times Square in 1977, I could not believe the incredible sleeziness of it. I had never seen anything like it. Of course we'll never see anything like that again. Those days are long gone. I visited NYC last year and it looked like a different city. It's certainly a cleaner, more maintained and a much more safe feeling city today than I remember from 1977.
12 years after this comment nyc is almost as bad as 1977 just without the personality
@@bb-gc2tx I was just going to say, it's back to being a dump.
@@robs5688 and it will only get worse. the baby boomer generation of cops were real men who werent afraid to take care of business this generation of millenial gen z cops are nowhere as tough as those cops from back in the day
@@bb-gc2txNot true. NYC crime rate is relatively low. The biggest complaint about NYC is not crime, it’s how expensive it’s become because actually gotten nicer
@@ramencurry6672 have you been watching the news crime is out of control and the city is being swamped with illegal aliens its a mess right now
Amazing clip! The music's sound and pedigree are fantastic! If you need to see "Mr Rogers" videos, go elsewhere! This is NYC!
When New York was New York i am so grateful I was there for that time period
this is how i will always remember it. i miss it. it was an adventure for a young man. sex & drugs & ... i lived a few blocks south of times square in the '80s.
sums up what alot of us feel. Disney and 42nd street was a tragic marriage. joey
Times Square became a "Family" place, it is better this way, It had to be done.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Ha! All the people dreaming of the days when New York had character. So if I get this straight your complaint is that your city is too safe and clean. What a bunch of fools you guys are. If your really want a bit of the old grime back why not just move to Detroit. That city is far from gentrified. I'd say I hope you get your wish, because that would be the best punishment that could be inflicted upon you, but I have friends who live in New York. Keep complaining that things are too good...
These scenes were shot largely from about (about) 1978 to 1983. Gentrification really started to hit Times Square hard in the early 1990s. Though the clean up was slowly proceeding throughout the late 1980s, the clean up was arguably completed by the late 1990s.
A marvelous book on the Times Square of the 1970s and 80s is called 'Tales of Times Square' by Josh Alan Friedman. Don't miss this book.
are all the redlight districts gone,and what about the movie theaters
Bullshit, as usual. Gentrification really started to hit Times Square a couple years after Giuliani became mayor in 1994, you nutcase. Get your facts right.
NYC was at its seediest for almost 30 years - starting with John Lindsay in the late 1960s to the mid 1990s when NYC was starting to get cleaned up by Giuliani.
The first sign of Times Square getting Disneyfied/Gentrified was when the musical Beauty and the Beast play opened on Broadway on April 18, 1994 -- 3 months into Giuliani's first term as mayor.
If you want to get technical though, Bloomberg is who really Gentrified NYC. All Giuliani did was made NYC safe with the crime rates going down, more police presence, and cleaned it up.
During Dinkins’ four years as mayor, crime skyrocketed. In 1990 (his first year in office), the number of murders reached a staggering 2,245. The number hovered around (or near) 2,000 for the next three years. In 1993, it was 1,946. In 1994 (Giuliani’s first year in office) it was 1,561 -- and crime has been going down ever since.
The gritty NYC era was with Lindsay, Beame, Koch, and Dinkins.
Obviously, during the early 1990s (1990 to 1993) aka the Dinkins years, NYC was still gritty. No signs of Gentrification at all.
Judged by the amount of street walking prostitutes in Times Sq, the early 1990s were much, much less gritty than the late 1960s to mid 1980s period. As Friendman's book points out, in the 1970s it wasn't unusual to see a thousand (1,000!) old-school style hookers walking the streets of T Sq -- now that's gritty. By the early 1990s there wasn't anything even remotely close to that number (though of course there was still a lively street walkers' scene). Sure, the actual gentrification per see really didn't take off till the mid 1990s, but by '93 many of the old "movie theaters" were being shut down (not all of course). Look over Josh Alan Friedman's book "Tales of Times Square" it's an amazing read. We're sort of splitting hair here in certain respects between the early 90s and mid 90s it's hairsplitting that really doesn't warrant your tone of "b.s. as usual."
+Drew Hunkins wow. the same stupid bullcrap from you as usual. I love how morons like you assume that NYC in the early-mid 90s was not the same how it was in the late 60- 80s. NYC changed in the late 90s and early 2000s.
yes, what was the "red light district" is gone now. In the same area you now have some very big, plush theaters. They took the old ones and restructured the insides, making them into multiplexes. There's also a Discovery Center, run by the Discovery Channel, and a Madame Tussaud's Was Museum. Never thought I'd see one of those there. One of the last ones to go was Show World, where they used to have live sex shows. Oh, and some of the theaters were turned into office buldings. usually there's a Starbuck's there, but you can't really recognize the theaters. The TImes Square and 42nd area is now full of people dressed in character costumes trying to hook the tourists. We went from one kind of hooker to another, if you think about it. There's still a real seedy vibe around there though, like bad juju. It's where the MTV studios are, and all the lights. Makes me wonder what the land was like back before the Dutch settlers came. Was it like a burial ground or a swamp? I always wonder. No matter how they try to clean it up, literally or figuratively, it's still awful. I'd hate to work in the Forever 21 or other suburban shopping mall stores that are now around there--and if any of the workers go from a mall to midtown, they're going to get some severe culture shock. You can still spot the hooker or two -- usually if you spot a very young woman in breakneck high heels and a really short skirt, by herself, or talking to one guy, she's probably a hooker. Usually young people will hang out in groups, esp if they're coming in from the surrounding areas or are tourists. I'm not sure if there's even any SRO hotels around there anymore, and, if there are, they're way more low key they used to be in the sleazy old days.
The Track fits like a rubber !- Acid Rock at it's core - as for todays folks they'de be clipped like fuckin' pidgeons being so focused on them damn phones I- what nots!
NYC..We would trip up to NYC from Philly on the weekends in the 70's and torch 42nd street. Man we came back burnt down and I am talking singed. Place could have never existed even as my mind and body experienced the action. Next week....'69' Charger packed and heading north. Wooooooo. You missed the world if you never went.
This should be the setting of the next Grand Theft Auto. Late 70s new york..
i couldn't make it through the whole vid. too emotional for me. man, do i miss the NYC. there is no reason to go into the city anymore. there really isn't.
Had family there. They and the City have passed. Too many great memories. Miss them both!
Beautiful to this Cali dude. Wish I'd live in this Generation. while others were flockin to SF, definitely would have went East. Can only imagine the heat in the city at that time.
It was a wonderful time despite the creepiness of Times Square. Young girls would often disappear if they went to the Playland arcade. Other than that it was nice
@mrclutch88 mr clutch i was in new york a few days ago and I saw a homeless man wrestlign and doing karate on an imaginary oppoenent right near madison sqaure gerden. I swear to you and all who read this, there are still crazy people in new york.
Worked on 42 in fifth ave for some years
It fuckin pains me to see these images of Times Sq/42nd of the 1970s. I was born in 1979 so by the time i was old enough to get out to the City on my own in the late 1990s this was already "cleaned up." I am obsessed with things 1970s... especially New York City. I live in the tri-state area so I make it to the city, myself, at least 2x a year. I love the City dearly but there was just something special and unique about the grit and grime of this period that can't be duplicated or overshadowed.
When I was in high school during the 1980s we used to drive through the Lincoln Tunnel (we were from NJ) and hang out all night in the 42nd street area drinking open containers right in front of NYPD. Great to people watch the pimps, drug dealers, junkies, drunks and hookers. But we always prayed to get back to NJ safely as the side streets were full of muggers.
bigart1993 I remember walking out of the port authority one summer night in 1985 and was blown away at how awesome ny was. The burned out buildings across the street. The zombie drug addicts and homeless. The city was so full of characters. Pick pockets and thieves. What a wonderful place. Now you’ve got white collar criminals steeling far more money and somehow that’s not a problem. Miss the old days so much.
Believe it or not there are still places like this in nyc maybe not to this extreme but you just have to know where to go and look