All of a sudden the curtain rolled itself down and Ebony opened the door telling me for an extra $20 I could continue the show in the back room. "Lift up your skirt to let me see." For a hot second I blushed with pride and actually put my hands to my skirt, contemplating returning the favor. "You have very nice thighs," she told me. what? There’s more? I didn’t want to be argumentative in the tiny booth on the top floor of a Times Square peep show so I did as I was told. There may have also been a thumbs up involved.Īs the final fanfare died down, I felt a wave of relief. I told her I thought it looked very nice. Following the GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS banners, I climbed to the top.
"Hello sir, I would like to see the show, please." He directed me to the third floor. Past the first floor array of condoms, tassels, and sex toys du jour, I made my way to the back of the store to an elderly gentleman guarding the staircase to the upstairs den of depravity. I made my way to 8th Ave between 43rd and 44th to the Playpen, a sex store-meets-entertainment house that shares the block with a Harlem Spiritual tour company and a Starbucks. Still, tucked among the life-sized Spongebobs, Jersey Boys, and a Forever 21 that extends to the high heavens, exists about 10 remaining peep shows in Times Square, bringing the hardened New York old-schoolers (ahem, and yours truly) a taste of NYC’s fabled, folkloric past: naked ladies undulating in tiny, private booths while you sit awkwardly for the longest two minutes and 19 seconds of your entire life in a chair that was last Lysol’d the day before never. We’ve heard the decrepit troubadours sing their lyrical poems about all the hookers, drug addicts, and a plethora of peep shows that Giuliani did away with in the mid-'90s and replaced with Olive Garden, Neil Patrick Harris, and all the M&M's (thanks a lot, Giuliani). We all have heard the storied past of Times Square in the 1980s, told to us in hushed, reverent tones from the boozed-up guy at the back of Jimmy’s Corner. One might think that the lingering remnants of Times Square’s famed peep show culture would be seedy, dirty, and altogether a little disturbing.
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