#236 Times Square in the '70s

The Bowery Boys: New York City History

Tom Meyers

Society & Culture, History, Documentary, Places & Travel

4.8 • 3.6K Ratings

🗓️ 8 September 2017

⏱️ 63 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Take a trip with us down the grittiest streets in Times Square -- the faded marquees of the grindhouses, the neon-lit prurient delights of Eighth Avenue at night. Times Square in the 1970s was all about fantasy -- from the second-run theaters of 42nd Street to the pornographic pleasures of the adult bookstores next door. And yet our ideas of this place and time are also caught in a bit of fantastic nostalgia. In memory it becomes an erotic theme park, a quaint corner of New York City history. Sometimes its stark everyday reality is forgotten. In this show we focus on a couple of Times Square's most notorious streets from the period -- 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue -- and provide historical context for the seediness they were known for in this era. Those glowing marquees disguise a theatrical history that dates from the beginning of Times Square, once hosting productions by the likes of Florenz Ziegfeld and Oscar Hammerstein. And the sex industries themselves trace back to the early seedy days of the Tenderloin neighborhood. They coalesced around Port Authority Bus Terminal (aka "the cavern of squalor") to produce a gritty scene that was at once alluring, dangerous, and quintessentially New York. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/boweryboys

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode of The Barry Boys is brought to you by the new HBO drama series The Duce,
0:05.9	from executive producers David Simon and George Pelicanos of The Wire.
0:11.1	The Duce chronicles the rise of the pornography industry in early 1970s New York, driven by
0:17.3	the gradual crackdown of the city's sex trade and politically motivated efforts to clean up
0:22.4	Times Square.
0:23.9	James Franco and Maggillin Hall lead a dynamic cast of characters swirling through a liberated
0:29.3	world of sex, crime, high times, and sudden violence as the porn business begins its
0:35.6	climb to legitimacy and cultural permanence.
0:39.6	The Duce premieres this Sunday, September 10th, at 9pm, but advanced premiere streaming
0:45.0	is available now only on HBO.
0:48.5	The Barry Boys episode 236 Times Square in the 70s.
0:54.2	Hey, it's The Barry Boys.
0:57.0	Support for The Barry Boys is provided by our listeners.
1:00.6	Join us for as little as a dollar a month by visiting patreon.com slash Barry Boys.
1:09.3	Hi there, welcome to The Barry Boys.
1:10.9	This is Greg Young.
1:12.0	And this is Tom Myers.
1:13.5	Tom, the lights are up on the marquee.
1:16.9	There is a sleazy, sleazy film in the projector.
1:21.2	And we are ready to tell the story of a unique place and time in New York City history.
1:27.2	Times Square in the 1970s.
1:30.2	Now even though we've just ended our three-part series on the roaring 20s, today's episode
	...

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