8.  Martin Hodas’ Secret Basement Film Studio

Photo: Paul Schiraldi/HBO

This is where Hodas made some of the films for his peepshows, located somewhere on West 14th Street, between 7th and 8th Avenue. Even today, the exact location is a closely guarded secret.

9. Gritty NYC Subway

No show about New York City in the 1970s is complete without shots from the gritty subway. Besides the graffiti, we see a double lettered subway train (the RR), a now-defunct nomenclature used by the predecessors of current subway lines. Both the the Independent Subway System (IND), which was one of three subway systems in NYC that form to make today’s MTA, and the BMT Broadway line, had the practice of designating local lines with double-lettered signage.

The RR, which did not actually run through Times Square, appeared starting 1960 to 1961, the same train known as the “Fourth Avenue Local via Tunnel.” Initially, the RR ran from Forest Hills, Queens to Bay Ridge in Brooklyn. In 1967, the RR train ran from Astoria, Queens to Bay Ridge in Queens on the BMT Astoria line. In 1985-86, with the renaming of the double-lettered trains, it became the R line again.

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