The Lullaby Of Old, Um, Eighth Avenue: Say Goodnight To The Playpen. Forever.

Last week’s New York Times featured a story about prostitutes who use Craigslist, the often free, international, Internet bulletin-board as their, well, pimp. Police across the nation have been taking notice of the activity, and Long Island cops have been “placing decoy ads to catch would-be customers.” As a near-by resident, I was disappointed with a quote by one of the police detectives, who said, “Craigslist has become the high-tech 42nd Street, where much of the solicitation takes place now”. I thought, after a decade or three, that 42nd Street would no longer be synonymous with the, um, sex trade. (I’m hoping it’s also not synonymous with Disney, but I fear I’ve lost that battle.)

Evidently, I forgot about the last remaining vestiges of the red light district. The Playpen, on Eighth Avenue (where many of the theaters moved when Times Square was “cleaned up” in the ’80s), the last of the porn palaces in the Times Square area, is about to be demolished, and with it, ninety years of pornographic movies, Vaudeville acts, foreign films, gay pornographic movies, and, probably, more pornographic movies. Oh, and live sex shows. The theater’s facade was captured in the 2003 movie “Phone Booth.” Now, The Committee To Save The Playpen Theater, though, in this case, (I would say God, but in this context it would seem too fundamentalist) who the hell knows why, is attempting to live up to its name.

When I was growing up in Connecticut, there was a theater downtown, whose marquee never changed. It read, “Have A Nice Day. See A Movie. Rated X.” I always thought that was funny, but even more so, when I was old enough to understand it. This reminded me of the rich (and tawdry) history of Times Square theaters, and the closing of “The Gaiety,” the “fabled gay male strip club” and the Howard Johnson’s on 46th Street in 2005. (Yup, right next to/on top of, each other. Talk about family values.) It also reminded me of, unfortunately, of Rupert Everett’s odd reminiscenses of his theater experiences in his youth.

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See 42nd Street Memories for great old photographs of 42nd Street theaters.
And thanks (and apologies) to Jeremiah Moss.

Tags: 10036, Broadway, Disney, film, GLBT, Manhattan, New York City, NY Times, NYC, Off-Broadway, Playpen, Rupert Everett, strip, The New York Times, Times Square, YouTube