So long, Sucker

Old Times Square was at the brink of extinction and my job was done. The finale of this series.

: Times Square on the brink

: With Uncle Lou, of Episode 10

: With Annie Sprinkle and Ratso at the Melody Burlesk

: 42nd Street correspondent

: Getting ready for redevelopment

OLD FLESH AGENTS

Irv Charnoff and Jess Mack were the last remaining vaudeville/burlesque booking agents in 1984. They mourned the decline of wholesome American show-biz, as it devolved into pornography.

: Jess Mack’s quarterly magazine

: Very few top-banana burlesque comics—represented by agents like Jess Mack and Irv Charnoff—transitioned into movies or TV. And so their legends faded into the ether

: Billy “Cheese and Crackers” Hagan. A spritz of seltzer down the pants garnered big laughs

: Chesty Morgan was booked by both Jess Mack and Irv Chranoff, when they reluctantly took on X-rated strippers

FREEING THE NIPPLE FROM SALES TAX

Al Kronish, one of the Melody Burlesk’s owners, was the first CPA to do tax returns for porn stars. Under constant legal harassment from the city, he kept Times Square’s last bastion of old burlesque open and spread-eagled.

(All photos by Don Demcsik for Tales of Times Square)

: Al Kronish, co-owner of the Melody Burlesk, in 1982.

: Al and Kandi Barbour at Bernard’s, across from the Melody

: Anna Turner, onstage at the Melody, 1982

: Kandi, Al and Anna Turner. “Ladies, please–my doctor says I only got one last fuck left in me.”

: Southern belle, Kandi Barbour, onstage at the Melody Burlesk, 1982. She died homeless in San Francisco in 2012, at the age of 52.

#17: Josh in Times Square

So long, Sucker

#16: Old Flesh Agents

OLD FLESH AGENTS

#15: Gentle with the Girls

FREEING THE NIPPLE FROM SALES TAX