Twentieth anniversary edition of a landmark book that cataloged a
vibrant but disappearing neighborhood in New York City
In the two decades
that preceded the original publication of Times Square Red, Times
Square Blue, Forty-second Street, then the most infamous street
in America, was being remade into a sanitized tourist haven. In the
forced disappearance of porn theaters, peep shows, and street
hustlers to make room for a Disney store, a children's theater, and
large, neon-lit cafes, Samuel R. Delany saw a disappearance, not only
of the old Times Square, but of the complex social relationships that
developed there.
Samuel R. Delany
bore witness to the dismantling of the institutions that promoted
points of contact between people of different classes and races in a
public space, and in this hybrid text, argues for the necessity of
public restrooms and tree-filled parks to a city's physical and
psychological landscape.
This twentieth
anniversary edition includes a new foreword by Robert Reid-Pharr that
traces the importance and continued resonances of Samuel R. Delany's
groundbreaking Times Square Red, Times Square Blue.