For a while my father had a place on West 46th Street on Restaurant Row. It was a decent immediate area but walk to Times Square or certain parts of Hell's Kitchen and it got scary. In High School my father would let me stay out till whenever and I would take friends to Times Square, this was late 80's early 90's and you were either crazy or stupid for hanging out there at 2 AM on a Saturday Night. (We were stupid). You had the peep shows that would let you in at 15, bars that would serve you, black gangs like the Decepticons walking around, The Lost Tribe of the Isrealites, hustlers, pimps, cheap hookers, guys selling stolen/ knockoff jewelry It was truly a freak show but we had a blast. When Rudy got elected the place seemed to change overnight and became Disneyland. It was a tourist trap then just like it is now, but definatly does not have the same appeal for a teenage boy that it once did. Does anyone here remember the peepshows? You would put a quarter or token in, a sliding piece of wood would go up and there would be girls walking around topless and they would come over to the window for about five seconds and try to get you to pay extra to grab them and the window would go back down.
I remember vividly my first time entering those peep shows at age 15! My buddies and I had never seen anything like it and vowed to come back the next night with more cash. A little later one of us was robbed at knife point so that ended that idea.
Looking back, it was crazy how the whole west side around the post office was a
sea of hookers and pimps
