Doin' Time in Times Square
September 22, 2018 1:14 PM Subscribe
Doin' Time in Times Square, by Charlie Ahearn (and some footage by Jane Dickson, it appears) (0:40). "In 1986, Ahearn — who’d moved to his second-floor loft apartment on the corner of 43rd and Eighth Avenue in 1981 — began filming what he saw out his window. For the next four years, Ahearn aimed his camera down at the unflinching and uncomfortable realism of Times Square NYC."
This post was deleted for the following reason: Poster's Request -- loup
Holy crap, the guy getting knocked the fuck out at 9:45. Never sucker-punch, kids.
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:53 PM on September 22, 2018
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:53 PM on September 22, 2018
And look at the guy in the black hat at 10:28 slide in there and take his wallet and then skedaddle. I spent quite a lot of time in Times Square in 86-89 or so, high school junior, senior and a bit after coming in from NJ and looking for some illicit fun...this whole video is so true to my memories. Funnily enough, I ended up working there during the whole Disneyfication, I was at MTV when they moved their studios to the Viacom building, so I saw all the changes, for better or worse, in what was really a very small space of time, certainly less than a decade.
The old Times Square was nasty and dirty and just horrible, but dangerous fun for a suburban teenager. For sure, the new Times Square is better for almost everyone but I can't help but miss the old one. I wouldn't want to hang out there again, but it's a great memory.
posted by conifer at 2:05 PM on September 22, 2018 [6 favorites]
The old Times Square was nasty and dirty and just horrible, but dangerous fun for a suburban teenager. For sure, the new Times Square is better for almost everyone but I can't help but miss the old one. I wouldn't want to hang out there again, but it's a great memory.
posted by conifer at 2:05 PM on September 22, 2018 [6 favorites]
I feel privileged to have seen the old Times Square before it went away, even if it was only as a tourist who stayed just long enough to get taken in by a whole team of con men running some kind of crazy elaborate ruse.
posted by sfenders at 2:06 PM on September 22, 2018
posted by sfenders at 2:06 PM on September 22, 2018
> vimeo won't play in Chrome??
No problem here - check your ad blockers and extensions and whatnot.
> It's like New York my elderly dad who's never been to nyc warns me about.
Exactly. I travel to New York one a year or so, and there's still an 80s kid inside me saying that maybe if I turn down the wrong (right?) street I'll come across this Manhattan. Still hasn't happened.
posted by komara at 3:21 PM on September 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
No problem here - check your ad blockers and extensions and whatnot.
> It's like New York my elderly dad who's never been to nyc warns me about.
Exactly. I travel to New York one a year or so, and there's still an 80s kid inside me saying that maybe if I turn down the wrong (right?) street I'll come across this Manhattan. Still hasn't happened.
posted by komara at 3:21 PM on September 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
Did a short stretch there when I went to NJ as a field tech on a support call a long time ago. Stayed the weekend and did a quick look around. Took a bus from NJ to New York and two (or was it three?) helpful groups of strangers who wanted to show me where my bus left when I was on a run to catch the last bus back to NJ at night. They all wanted to take me downstairs but (surprise!) it turned out it left on one of the upper floors.
posted by aleph at 3:21 PM on September 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by aleph at 3:21 PM on September 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
I'm ... not sure it's ok to romanticize or be nostalgic for a time and place marked by such sexual and physical violence. When Trump talks about "inner cities," he's preying on his (white, rural) audience's notion that this is what urban living and ethnic minorities still look like in 2018.
posted by basalganglia at 3:32 PM on September 22, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by basalganglia at 3:32 PM on September 22, 2018 [4 favorites]
This (or nightly-news versions of this) was definitely what my suburban Midwestern parents grimly imagined when I moved to NYC in 1995. By that time Times Square's Disneyfication had begun, but it was still in transition. Not that I hung out in Times Square much (at least not until getting a job there in '97). My streets in the East Village had their own mix of grit and fun.
I wouldn't say this video romanticizes Times Square in the '80s – it's a straightforward document of a rough place. But nostalgia's funny, whether it's based on real memories or what you mostly saw in other people's footage. In the '90s I sort of felt I'd ended up in NYC a few years too late, since in college I'd liked the art of people like Basquiat and Keith Haring and the '80s no-wave music scene. But there's no doubt the city had become safer, too.
posted by lisa g at 4:36 PM on September 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
I wouldn't say this video romanticizes Times Square in the '80s – it's a straightforward document of a rough place. But nostalgia's funny, whether it's based on real memories or what you mostly saw in other people's footage. In the '90s I sort of felt I'd ended up in NYC a few years too late, since in college I'd liked the art of people like Basquiat and Keith Haring and the '80s no-wave music scene. But there's no doubt the city had become safer, too.
posted by lisa g at 4:36 PM on September 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
The Times Square Daddy warned me about.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 4:44 PM on September 22, 2018
posted by The Underpants Monster at 4:44 PM on September 22, 2018
Why do I never hear anyone talk about a palatable middle way between the previous massive seedy corruption and the current massive crass corporatization (which is just a different kind of corruption)?
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:11 PM on September 22, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:11 PM on September 22, 2018 [6 favorites]
Why do I never hear anyone talk about a palatable middle way between the previous massive seedy corruption and the current massive crass corporatization (which is just a different kind of corruption)?
Because there isn't one that works for both the wealthy and the poor in this society? I never lived in Times Square, but the things shown in the video weren't uncommon in some places I haved lived, which makes it unacceptable to those who want no risk and those who live lives on the edge aren't able to exist comfortably in areas that require following the social norms of "polite society". Ideally it would be nice to hope for some balance between those things, but I don't know how you get there.
posted by gusottertrout at 5:59 PM on September 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
Because there isn't one that works for both the wealthy and the poor in this society? I never lived in Times Square, but the things shown in the video weren't uncommon in some places I haved lived, which makes it unacceptable to those who want no risk and those who live lives on the edge aren't able to exist comfortably in areas that require following the social norms of "polite society". Ideally it would be nice to hope for some balance between those things, but I don't know how you get there.
posted by gusottertrout at 5:59 PM on September 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
Why do I never hear anyone talk about a palatable middle way between the previous massive seedy corruption and the current massive crass corporatization (which is just a different kind of corruption)?
My take on NYC, from my own relatively brief time there (just before lisa g), was that it was just too big to effectively govern. Ahearn and a couple of MeFites in this thread cite "Disneyfication", and all I can tell you is that, based on what people tell me about the theme parks (I've never been), NYC would be doing incredibly well to be run about 10% as well as Disney runs its turf. If the sleazy times came back, people would be bitching about that, and how neat and clean everything used to be in the aughts and teens. (As it is, they'll probably bitch about how great NYC used to be when it was above water.) I don't think that that era of NYC was a shambolic paradise of cool music and edgy styles where it was a toss-up as to whether you'd run into the Ramones or Lou Reed (conveniently in some liminal state between being an addict and being the cranky terror of rock journalists everywhere) just strolling down Umpteenth Street or Still-Affordable-to-Artists Avenue. Nostalgia does some Disneyfication of its own.
WRT the FPP subject... I can appreciate some of the past posts regarding photos taken during the 70s and 80s in the city, but there's something queasily voyeuristic about being perched several stories above the street, watching people being hurt and arrested and whatnot. Ahearn has some decent artistic cred, but I can't watch all of this.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:12 PM on September 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
My take on NYC, from my own relatively brief time there (just before lisa g), was that it was just too big to effectively govern. Ahearn and a couple of MeFites in this thread cite "Disneyfication", and all I can tell you is that, based on what people tell me about the theme parks (I've never been), NYC would be doing incredibly well to be run about 10% as well as Disney runs its turf. If the sleazy times came back, people would be bitching about that, and how neat and clean everything used to be in the aughts and teens. (As it is, they'll probably bitch about how great NYC used to be when it was above water.) I don't think that that era of NYC was a shambolic paradise of cool music and edgy styles where it was a toss-up as to whether you'd run into the Ramones or Lou Reed (conveniently in some liminal state between being an addict and being the cranky terror of rock journalists everywhere) just strolling down Umpteenth Street or Still-Affordable-to-Artists Avenue. Nostalgia does some Disneyfication of its own.
WRT the FPP subject... I can appreciate some of the past posts regarding photos taken during the 70s and 80s in the city, but there's something queasily voyeuristic about being perched several stories above the street, watching people being hurt and arrested and whatnot. Ahearn has some decent artistic cred, but I can't watch all of this.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:12 PM on September 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
I couldn’t finish watching it either... I was surprised at how uncomfortable I felt.
posted by bookmammal at 6:33 PM on September 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by bookmammal at 6:33 PM on September 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
I'm ... not sure it's ok to romanticize or be nostalgic for a time and place marked by such sexual and physical violence. When Trump talks about "inner cities," he's preying on his (white, rural) audience's notion that this is what urban living and ethnic minorities still look like in 2018.
You mean "white suburban" as much as you mean "white rural."
I have all kinds of thoughts on 70s/80s NYC nostalgia and nostalgie de la boue generally, but I think it's important to understand that the sexual and physical violence has been ended largely by widespread appropriation (of various kinds) of the city from those minorities and the violent repression of a lot of "deviant" behavior. That means it is far more complicated than simply wallowing in the suffering of some poor people or even indulging in the above-mentioned Lou Reed fantasies (though people definitely do those sorts of things!).
posted by praemunire at 9:02 PM on September 22, 2018
You mean "white suburban" as much as you mean "white rural."
I have all kinds of thoughts on 70s/80s NYC nostalgia and nostalgie de la boue generally, but I think it's important to understand that the sexual and physical violence has been ended largely by widespread appropriation (of various kinds) of the city from those minorities and the violent repression of a lot of "deviant" behavior. That means it is far more complicated than simply wallowing in the suffering of some poor people or even indulging in the above-mentioned Lou Reed fantasies (though people definitely do those sorts of things!).
posted by praemunire at 9:02 PM on September 22, 2018
The film operates much as memory does. It consists of brief vignettes that, for their cruelty or notability, later spring to mind. I have no doubt that there was a pretty steady stream of Bad Stuff outside Ahearn's window, but I bet there was also a lot of Not Much, times when people were walking by and cars were driving past, and things were pretty mundane. When people are nostalgic, they aren't necessarily longing for the badness, but the day-to-day that's not entirely depicted in the linked film.
Disnification aside, NYC made deals with a number of devils to get where it is today. The video just predates the rise in CompStat and stop-and-frisk policing, which has criminalized and incarcerated vast swaths of black and brown people. It also predates the gutting of rent control, which led to the utter unafordability of most units in the city.
It's possible to be nostalgic for a time when people could stay in their neighborhoods and didn't have to put the majority of their take-home into rent. A city where people didn't have to work multiple jobs to get by, leaving no time for anything else. Or for a city whose storefronts catered to residents' needs, and not those of wealthy tourists looking to buy luxury brands. A city that didn't ramp up mass incarceration and harrassment of its own citizens.
Things were bad, but I'd like to think that there are other, better outcomes than the one we're living in.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 9:30 AM on September 23, 2018 [2 favorites]
Disnification aside, NYC made deals with a number of devils to get where it is today. The video just predates the rise in CompStat and stop-and-frisk policing, which has criminalized and incarcerated vast swaths of black and brown people. It also predates the gutting of rent control, which led to the utter unafordability of most units in the city.
It's possible to be nostalgic for a time when people could stay in their neighborhoods and didn't have to put the majority of their take-home into rent. A city where people didn't have to work multiple jobs to get by, leaving no time for anything else. Or for a city whose storefronts catered to residents' needs, and not those of wealthy tourists looking to buy luxury brands. A city that didn't ramp up mass incarceration and harrassment of its own citizens.
Things were bad, but I'd like to think that there are other, better outcomes than the one we're living in.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 9:30 AM on September 23, 2018 [2 favorites]
although the moments with his kids that are purposefully juxtaposed in there for sudden 180° emotional turns are meant, I suspect, for relief from it being just purely 40 minutes of that, almost like "palate cleansers."
Those family interludes did almost the opposite for me. They hit me as very tragic, like home recordings made by the last survivors hiding-out in a tower while the zombie apocalypse outside claims the world. I see a hint of resignation to fate in their faces.
....................................
vimeo won't play in Chrome??
FWIW, in Firefox, the Vimeo popups (as opposed to the YT popups) here on MeFi never play, no matter what. I have to go to the Vimeo site, disable all my tracker blockers, and then the video will play. YMMV, of course.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:34 PM on September 23, 2018
Those family interludes did almost the opposite for me. They hit me as very tragic, like home recordings made by the last survivors hiding-out in a tower while the zombie apocalypse outside claims the world. I see a hint of resignation to fate in their faces.
....................................
vimeo won't play in Chrome??
FWIW, in Firefox, the Vimeo popups (as opposed to the YT popups) here on MeFi never play, no matter what. I have to go to the Vimeo site, disable all my tracker blockers, and then the video will play. YMMV, of course.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:34 PM on September 23, 2018
That was riveting - thank you for posting! I loved the moments of grace, like the one guy walking away from the cops, the group playing with the boxes, the young woman dancing in front of her window, and the little kid at the end, all proud and strutting because he caught that football.
posted by goofyfoot at 6:31 PM on September 24, 2018
posted by goofyfoot at 6:31 PM on September 24, 2018
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posted by chasles at 1:27 PM on September 22, 2018 [1 favorite]