#times square history

[voca1ion]

Some of the best and oldest color photography i’ve seen of New York City c1939 thanks to Macy’s color view postcard series.

#new york city #nyc #historical nyc #vintage postcards #30s #30s aesthetic #1930s aesthetic #postcards #postcards aesthetic #vintage nyc #nyc history #vintage #postcard #times square #washington square park #1930s vintage #1930s nyc #1930s #color photography #vintage color photography #fifth avenue #manhattan skyline #times square aesthetic #times square history #times square historical photo

[utilitycaster]

the idea that Orym has a death wish has led to some of the most laughable meta I've seen. Orym tells his closest friend - who has a penchant for delightfully wild impulses, is possibly important to the enemy's plot, and is about to see her biological father, about whom she has all kinds of complicated feelings - to not take unnecessary risks and people are handing out pamphlets on "a Treatise on Orym's Belief in Doom; Being an Account of His Deep-seated Hypocritical Actions Regarding The Pact With Morrigan, Hag and Fatestitcher" and it's like. idk man maybe they're going to be separated in a very clearly dangerous scenario and she specifically is in an emotionally charged and tricky one and he is saying "be careful", a normal thing friends might say to each other.

#people will be like Liam O'Brien is a shakespearian actor and professional sadboy (I disagree w/the latter but. that's the consensus) #and then when he plays characters who say kinda dramatic pronouncements they'll be like WHAT DOES IT MEAN WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN #babygirl this is mr. you were not born with venom in your veins he talks like this in d&d all the time good gravy #cr tag #i do imagine people with bad takes especially on twitter handing out pamphlets with bad takes like they're a really stupid Thomas Paine #like FULLY in the town square of Plymouth Plantations or Mystic Seaport in costume crying out about their meta #and i am a tourist like man where's the shop where i can for reasons having nothing to do with this living history museum obtain a geode

[racefortheironthrone]

what are your main criticisms of Times Square Red, Times Square Blue?

I think Delany's whole theory about how Times Square "Red" was a place of genuine cross-class social interaction and the like is wildly romanticized bullshit that downplays and softpeddles a lot of exploitation at work in the vice industries and the reality that pretty much everyone was there to get their fix or get paid and/or both, and then get the fuck out as quickly and safely as they could. There were reasons other than Puritanism that you kept your eyes on the sidewalk when you walked through the old Times Square.

I also think as a narrative about gentrification it ignores a longer history of how the Times Square he remembers was a transitory period caused by deindustrialization and neighborhood decline from the 30s-50s; it's not what Times Square was before and it wasn't what it was after, and in a lot of ways the hyper-capitalist consumerist tourist fantasia which is where I work on a day-to-day basis is pretty similar to what it was back in the 1920s or earlier.

And this doesn't make Times Square "Blue" unique or that different than any other example of neighborhood succession - plenty of neighborhoods in NYC from the Meatpacking District to Chelsea and SoHo and Alphabet City to Williamsburg got their start as working-class neighborhoods on the decline that got Bohemianized because the rents were cheap and then got trendy and then gentrified, and that all happened without the desexualizing hand of the House of Mouse at work.

#urban studies #sociology #nyc #nyc history #times square #samuel delany

[dudguacamole]

Despite moments of infatuation on both sides, these were not love relationships. The few hustlers excepted, they were not business relationships. They were encounters whose most important aspect was that mutual pleasure was exchanged—an aspect that, yes, colored all their other aspects, but that did not involve any sort of life commitment. Most were affable but brief because, beyond pleasure, these were people you had little in common with. Yet what greater field and force than pleasure can human beings share? More than half were single encounters. But some lasted over weeks; others for months; still others went on a couple of years. And enough endured a decade or more to give them their own flavor, form, and characteristic aspects. You learned something about these people (though not necessarily their name, or where they lived, or what their job or income was); and they learned something about you. The relationships were not (necessarily) consecutive. They braided. They interwove. They were simultaneous. These relationships did not annoy or in any way distress the man I was living with—because they had their limits. They were not the central relationships of my life. They made that central relationship richer, however, by relieving it of many anxieties.

—Samuel R. Delany, Times Square Red, Times Square Blue

#samuel r. delany #times square red times square blue #gay history #pride #LGBTQ+

[helloparkerrose]

#1959 #1950s #times square #new york city #christmas #macy's #history #vintage christmas

[bitegore]

You look at my sand castle

#its been soooooooo long since i last made oneof these things lmfao #sand wasntt wet enough for any real complex architecture so i leaned on my ability to make squares instead #wound up with a vague as hell little stepped pyramid/ziggurat looking thing and then leaned in using the vaguest memories of my like hs #history textbook illustrations to make it a little more interesting #everyone say thank you to my awesome friend tug for taking me to the beach and also shining a light so i could even take these #red rambles #its WARM HERE im reinflating. like a sponge. my brain is returning. life is good im having such a nice time its not even funny #MY HAIR IS CURLY AGAIN EVEN. THINGS ARE GOOD

[newyorkthegoldenage]

November 19, 1926: A parade through Times Square celebrating the 300th anniversary of Broadway. The route was south from 72nd St. to 38th St.—just a fraction of the avenue's length.

The Times noted, "The parade was to bring back to the famous street the days of long ago, and the barouches, victorias, and other carriages of other days looked sufficiently incongruous as they passed through the Great White Way behind automobiles. But most of it was devoted to modern advertisements of light, heat, and power, orange juice, and the moving pictures that are now current. … When an elephant tried to pull the spare tire from a New York Times automobile and wrapped its nose about a dog along side of it during the wait the crowd roared its appreciation of elephantine humor."

Source: NY Times Instagram

#New York #NYC #vintage New York #1920s #Broadway #tricentennial #parade #celebration #NYC history #NY history #Times Square

[kaleuh]

@paranoidgemsbok WAIT THAT WAS WHEN YOU WERE SEEING SLEEP NO MORE???

#I WAS THERE ALL DAY!! at the Museum of Natural History and around Times Square!! #I left at like 8:30pm so idk what time you saw it BUT ?????? THAT'S INSANE ?????? #??????????????????? WHAT ARE THE ODDS

[davidcashuk]

#history #usa #times square #nyc #new york city

[machetelanding]

Times Square, New York City (1958)

#times square #new york city #new york #america #united states #city #history #photographs #1950s

[neworkimprov]

Back to the Source: The Compass Players and the Birth of Improv Comedy

Today, improv comedy is a global phenomenon, fueling hilarious shows and nurturing the careers of countless comedic actors. But where did it all begin? Look no further than The Compass Players, a groundbreaking Chicago troupe that emerged in the mid-1950s. The Compass Players were a motley crew of dreamers and innovators, led by the visionary Paul Sills. But their secret weapon wasn’t just…

View On WordPress

#broadway #Chicago #club #comedy #Compass players #history #improv #interactive #new york #nyc #Paul sills #Spontaneous #theater #times square

[britneyshakespeare]

i had a very strange dream last night where i was looking through my facebook memories and a year ago today i had apparently posted a long, intended-as-a-joke post about how it's a shame we don't hang people from the gallows in the public square anymore. i was like wow oh god i don't remember writing this at all. this seems unlike myself; i think this is so unfunny and hurtful. how will this change how people see me? well it's a good thing i never posted that after all then.

#like i was being an ironic edgelord which is extremely strange. bc most of the time im not even a little edgy #edgy humor has to strike a very precise balance for me to enjoy it and i dont really bend that way myself #im more silly/absurd in my disposition. #i suppose it would've been absurd if i REALLY DID BELIEVE we should start hanging people in public squares again #but also it's not absurd bc that very much has happened on a large scale in human history. so. y'know #it's absurd to our sensibilities now but it is so not out of the realm of possibility for someone to agree w the practice #tales from diana #i dont know why but im pretty sure i titled the rant at the top of it 'femineconomics' #like it had something to do w feminism and/or femininity? #idk i cant remember the fake rant very well but it went on some WEIRD tangents in an attempt at humor #this is why i am NOT an edgelord btw bc as you can tell even if i were more bent to it i'd be bad at it

[mrklka]

#paul newman #aesthetic #vintage #old school cool #60s nostalgia #60s style #60s icons #60s movies #gentleman style #new york #black and white photography #retro #history #manhattan #times square

[racefortheironthrone]

"There were reasons other than Puritanism that you kept your eyes on the sidewalk when you walked through the old Times Square." Can you explain what you mean here? Not sure if it's a New York idiom I'm not understanding but like... what was going on in Times Square, why was it dangerous, and how would staring at the sidewalk be a useful defense?

"Keeping your eyes on the sidewalk" is a synecdoche for the urban survival method of not making eye contact, not stopping to talk to anyone, walking as fast as you can, and staying in well-lit, well-travelled areas as much as possible.

As to what was going on: New York City as a whole between the mid-60s and the early 90s had a much higher crime rate and violent crime rate than it had before or now; Manhattan was not an exception to this rule, although there was a lot of variability within the borough; and Times Square had a particularly high crime rate within Manhattan because it was a declining neighborhood that had lower foot traffic, underpolicing (because the NYPD didn't deem it an area worth devoting resources to because it was declining and a lot of the crime was directed at poor people of color, particularly women and LBGT+ poor people of color), and a concentration of the drug trade.

To be fair to Delany, I think he has a point in that a lot of what gave the Times Square of the 70s and 80s a bad name - porn theaters, sex stores, sex hotels, homeless people, most drug users, various cults proselytizing on the street - was not actually dangerous and a lot of that bad name did have to do with aesthetic unpleasantness. And I think he also has a point that, for the sex workers who got pushed out of the hotels and bars and clubs and onto 11th Avenue, things did not get safer when Times Square was "cleaned up."

Even with those caveats, I still think that he's wrong about the old Times Square, because those same people who were relatively safer indoors (if/when they were allowed indoors) still were exposed to a lot of danger on their way in and out.

#nyc #nyc history #times square #urban studies #sociology

[sea-salt-heart]

Neonscape - Time Square, New York, USA.

#photographers on tumblr #photography #new york #natural history #traveling #travel photography #travel #travel blog #USA #city #cityscape #neonscape #neon #neon lights #neon sign #time square

[schlock-luster-video]

On April 15, 1982, Times Square debuted in Australia.

#times square #allan moyle #robin johnson #tim curry #punk movies #feminist film #punk art #punk cinema #80s punk #riot grrrl #indie film #independent film #queer film #queer cinema #movie art #art #drawing #movie history #pop art #modern art #pop surrealism #cult movies #portrait #cult film #tcm underground