Times Square, 1979

By Jack Brummet, NYC Metro Ed.

Times Square, 1979, with Bill Murray, and a working gal. This was the center point of when we lived in NYC. I had to pass through Times Square often (I especially remember going there to the electronics stores, like 47th Street Camera to pick up a tape recorder, camera, or Walkman).

People can't conceive what a toilet Bryant Square Park was back then now that it's been so tidied up. Needles, hookers, bums, street kids, drunks, three card monte, hustlers. . .and the Irish bars and Tad's Steak House. 

We'd pass through TS to go to the theater a/k/a Broadway, or sometimes actually go there to see a film in one of those amazing stadium style theaters (where you could still smoke at a movie) or sometimes even to see a grindhouse movie or a zombie double bill. It never felt scary (well, sometimes), but always felt sleazy. Now it's something more akin to Fisherman's Wharf or the Pike Place Market or The Grove in L.A.--a friendly tourist destination with a colorful past.

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