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Season 1
Tales of...Times Square: The Tapes
Innocent victims of adversity. That’s how Uncle Lou, a geologist turned chauffeur, saw many of the girls in Times Square, who affectionately called him Uncle. His scrapbook documents an era of burlesque queens and porn starlets, whom he remains loyal to decades after their careers ended.
View Episode DetailsThe Man Who Booked the Movies From Cagney to Kung Fu.
Martin Levine, president of Brandt Theaters, booked most of the movies across 42nd Street for 50 years. His office reflects the faded glamour of a once mighty theater empire now reduced to kung-fu, grindhouse and porn flicks.
The Princess of 42nd Street
Fanny Gold ran her family’s 42nd Street newsstand as an eight-year-old girl in 1915. Living in poverty one block away, she was enchanted by Times Square’s aristocratic era. And was mugged six times there as an old lady.
Season 2
Tales of...My Dead Heroes
THE GREAT BLUESMAN TELLS IT STRAIGHTDoc Pomus no longer had to cater to the teenage rock ’n’ roll market. He…
View Episode DetailsTHE EARLY STIGMA OF ROCK ‘N’ ROLL After a dormant decade, the great songwriter Doc Pomus was back in business…
View Episode DetailsFROM PARADISE TO THE GUTTER The Great Pornographer went from Upper East Side family man/pornographer-next-door to Bowery bum. The First…
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About the podcast
Writer-guitarist Josh Alan Friedman was born in New York City in 1956. In a town of 50,000 writers, Josh was the only one covering the pre-Disney Times Square beat, for the men’s magazines of the era. He always marched to his own drummer, appearing in National Lampoon, Soho Weekly News, New York and High Times. By 1987, he’d had enough and followed his wife Peggy to Texas, a year after Tales of Times Square—the subject of our first season’s podcast—was published.
This seasons podcast presents Tales of...Josh’s Dead Heroes. Short stories, memories and the voices of Doc Pomus, Jerry Leiber, Cy Coleman, Mario Puzo, Keith Ferguson, Joel Dorn and Tiny Tim.