#15: Gentle with the Girls

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.

#14: The Life

TIMES SQUARE CLEANS UP FOR PORN REBORN

No sooner than the neighborhood rid itself of filth, pimps and whores came dancing back into the hearts of Broadway. Composer Cy Coleman and writer David Newman discuss their hit musical in 1997.

 

Broadway composer, Cy Coleman

Chuck Cooper and Lillias White in The Life (photo by Carol Rosegg)

“Gentleman of Leisure,” Silky, and his stable (photo by Bob Adelman)

David Newman (left) and Robert Benton

#13: The Hooker Bus

A SAFE SPACE FOR SISTERS OF THE NIGHT.

Girls from all over the country gravitated to NY to make more money in street prostitution than anywhere else. Missionary Arlene Carmen ran a mobile van that gave them a respite from the cops, the tricks and their pimps.

 

Arlene Carmen, of Judson Memorial Church, founded The Prostitution Project in 1975 with Pastor Howard Moody

Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village

Sgt. Bernard Paggioli, of Port Authority Youth Services

#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)

#11: The Man Who Booked the Movies

FROM CAGNEY TO KUNG FU.

Martin Levine, president of Brandt Theaters, booked most of the movies across 42^nd 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.

 

(photo by Berenice Abbott, 1938)

(photo by Nick Dewolf, 1970)

(photo by Jeff Goodman, 1983, for Tales of Times Square)