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Photo by and courtesy of Gregoire Alessandrini
On July 29th at noon, step back into gritty old Times Square on a virtual talk led by Untapped New York tour guide Robert Brenner. Most of old Times Square has been carefully obliterated by generic hotels, soulless office buildings, and Walt Disney musicals, but there are still a few vestiges of its seedy past—if you know where to look. On this virtual talk of Gritty Old Times Square, let us take you back to the halcyon days when 42nd Street was the Deuce, Eighth Avenue was the Minnesota Strip, the Great White Way was a red light district, and the Crossroads of the World was XXX-rated.
Untapped New York tour guide Robert Brenner will regale you with his encyclopedic knowledge of the former peepshows, grindhouses, adult book stores, dive bars, hotsheet hotels, sex clubs, porno theaters, and massage parlors–not to mention all three locations of the New York Times. We will discover the personalities who made Times Square what it was: the King of the Peeps; the reclusive genius behind the McDonalds of Sex; the woman who built a gay and S&M porn empire; the slumlord with two suitcases filled with gold and five wives; and the Catholic priest who flew too close to the neon sun and crashed and burned.
July 29th’s live event is organized for Untapped New York Insiders — get two months free with code JOINUS. A video of the talk will also be made available to all our Insiders afterwards in the Video Archive section of our website.
Next, check out 10 Seedy Remnants of Gritty Old Times Square You Can Still See Today
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