Heading into faggotland...

August 6, 2004 12:56 PM

Babyface: A Times Square Odyssey "This interactive web piece about the Babyfaces of Times Square takes place in the past, when the center city was a clash of classes rather than today's funeral of a theme park controlled by middle class undertakers." This is definitely not safe for work (drugs, porn, men in bathroom stalls), but if you want to remember the seedier side of NYC, this is one way to do it.
posted by WolfDaddy (6 comments total)

also, click the 'other authors' button
posted by WolfDaddy at 1:08 PM on August 6, 2004

god forbid you clean something up. "you got rid of the its soul!"

whatever. i never thought that excising demons was an evil thing.
posted by taumeson at 1:11 PM on August 6, 2004

god forbid you remember something that was once dirty. "your damning its you're sole!"

whatever. i never thought that clicking the other authors button was a taumeson thing.
posted by WolfDaddy at 1:19 PM on August 6, 2004

I knew 42nd street quite well when it was in its tenderloin, I mean prime, but only by day. Whenever I passed through NY I hit the three little shops on 42nd that sold the stock of out-of-business record stores dirt cheap. Deutsche Grammophon and European Phillips records for a buck ($7 to $9 ordinarily). Never saw anything worse than passed-out winos and some sidewalk pools of I-don't-want-to-know-what. The smell wasn't all that striking because it was just what I expected NY to smell like. Most memorable thing I ever saw was Moondog, about seven feet tall, in full Viking regalia. Wotan wishes he looked half as impressive.
posted by jfuller at 3:46 PM on August 6, 2004

Wow, if you make the right choose-your-own decisions this gets really disturbing.
The period-photography and dialogue's great, too. I love it.

Thanks for posting.
posted by Peter H at 4:17 PM on August 6, 2004

I actually lived in Times Square -- yes, I lived there. Not in Manhattan, but smack in Times Square on 44th street. I lived there in 1994-96 after it began to clean up but before it became disneyfied. I loved it and always enjoy these stories about the old seedy days (of which I caught the last few).
posted by PigAlien at 7:35 PM on August 6, 2004