I thought I was the only one who missed the old seedy abandoned-building Midnight Cowboy<\/i> charm of Times Square. I thought I was the only one who thought the cleaning up of Times Square was kind of a shame.<\/p>\n
Glad to see I’m not alone.<\/a><\/p>\n I mean, I think it’s great the city is not so randomly violent anymore. I do. But I don’t like the homogenization of so much of it now. And where have all the hookers gone … long time passing …<\/p>\n I didn’t move to New York City to be in a safe stable environment. I didn’t move to New York City to walk the straight and narrow. Sure, it’s good for business, Times Square as it is now. I know all the reasons. I feel grateful that I can ride the subway up to my friend’s in Morningside Heights and not feel like I am going to be raped at any second for having the AUDACITY to take the subway through Harlem. I don’t miss THAT part of New York. But I do miss the old landscape of Times Square, I miss the old specific signage (Lileks takes great photos of that stuff (like this series<\/a>– you still can see the old signs from the 40s and 30s here and there, but you have to have a reaaally good eye now), I miss the vague sense of naughty things going on behind closed doors.<\/p>\n I took a series of pretty amazing black and white photos (if I do say so myself) of the grime and porn and old strip joints on Times Square before they gutted the whole thing and made it tourist friendly. I’m so glad I did. The end of an era.<\/p>\n (I do realize that my emotions in this regard probably has to do with this<\/a>. Nostalgia is a big deal to me. Honoring the past is a big deal to me. And also – I have a hard time letting go of things. It’s all of a piece. I hate change. I don’t hate progress – not necessarily, but I don’t always LIKE it, and what progress DOES. If there’s a grove of trees I adore, that has always been there since I was a child, you can bet that I will have to mourn the loss of it for a good week or so when they cut the grove down to make room for condos. And I will feel a pang for YEARS to come when I drive by the new neighborhood of condos – remembering: “God, member the grove of trees that used to be there??” I don’t take things lightly I guess is my point.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I thought I was the only one who missed the old seedy abandoned-building Midnight Cowboy charm of Times Square. I thought I was the only one who thought the cleaning up of Times Square was kind of a shame. Glad … Continue reading