Black Cracker Presents: Tales of...Season 2

Tales of...My Dead Heroes

Josh's dead heroes. Interviews, memories and short stories. First up, A 21-year-old Josh auditions for Beatlemania in 1977.

IMG_7413

By Josh Alan Friedman

#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.

View Episode Details

#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.

View Episode Details

#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.

View Episode Details

#12: The Princess of 42nd Street

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.

View Episode Details

#11: The Man Who Booked the Movies

The 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.

View Episode Details