#12: The Princess of 42nd Street

Caruso tipped her $5.

Fanny Gold ran her family’s 42^nd 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.

: Open-air newsstands were common in New York throughout the 20th century. (photo by Berenice Abbott, 1935)

: Fanny Gold was introduced as The Princess of 42nd Street in 1915, here at the American Music Hall. The location became a ragged parking lot for decades at 8th Ave. and 42nd.

: Fanny Gold’s childhood neighborhood (from Times Square Spectacular, by Darcy Tell)