Sparks from the Fire

We live a block from Times Square. I’ve lived here for over 25 years and seen it change greatly for the better. It’s got a little bit of everything. That’s probably why it’s always wall-to-wall tourists. See the Big Apple and all its glories.

It’s main attraction is that it is the heart of the Broadway Theater District and that’s always a good thing – full of creativity and most often extremely well done. But it also has its seedier side as well. The porn shops are not as prevalent, but they’re still there. There are many new and glamorous hotels, but there’s still the Carter (poor Jimmy) and the Idaho – dumps where you wouldn’t want to touch the walls with your bare hands.

It attracts all kinds of people though – all gawking at one another, all out for a good time. All walking down the sidewalk much slower than the average New Yorker because they’re all looking up at the tall buildings. It’s become impossible to walk down the sidewalk if you’re in a hurry (and what New Yorker isn’t?). So my wife and I just take to the streets and take our chances with the traffic.

Before Disney moved in, 42nd Street was the armpit of the nation. You could literally buy anything yo’ little ol’ heart desired right on the street – scalper’s tix, drugs, sex, even kids. Now it’s been cleaned up and “touristified”. It’s certainly better, but is still, unfortunately, all about a shallowness of attraction that makes me squirm – it being my back yard.

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Many years ago, in another life with another wife, I decided to take a break from the growing tensions of marriage and give it a week’s rest.  So I gathered up a quick overnight bag and a couple of changes of clothes and went off to spend some time with a musician friend and his girlfriend at their house ostensibly to do some writing together, but really, just to get away.

Without knowing what I was getting into, I moved from the frying pan to the fire.  My piano playing friend and his girlfriend were on the verge of their own breakup and fought like cats and dogs day and night so much so that I started to go a little nuts.  Finally begging off, I left them and moved into another friend’s apartment for the rest of the week back in the city.  He lived in a 5th floor walkup in a railroad flat on 46th street just off the Broadway Theater District and adjacent to Hell’s Kitchen.  He was to be gone for the weekend and kindly left me the keys to his crash pad.

It was a hot August in New York City.  No air-conditioning, noisy and lonely.  I was miserable, feeling sorry for myself, upended, forced out of my own home and pretty low.  Saturday night came and I had nothing to do, nowhere to go.  I sat around this lonely apartment trying to figure out my life until I just couldn’t take it anymore.

So about midnight I headed out to Times Square, man on the loose, to where the action is on a hot August Saturday night in New York City.  I got what I asked for.  With a whore on every corner and the drunks in between, the pushers and the wide-eyes, the narcos and the queens, it was the wild and wacky 70s of Times Square.  The heat only increased the feeling of desperation in the city and the air was heavy with the funk of the street.

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