As we read the novel, we want to try to imagine how New York City looked to Rufus and Vivaldo and Ida in the 1950s.
The first chapter - when Rufus walks 42nd Street in desperation - describes all kinds of elements of "forty-deuce" that no longer exist today: bars, arcades, movie theaters showing Italian films, pornography shops (although these are sprinkled along 8th Avenue), prostitutes (male and female), heroin addicts and drug dealers.
The novel is set in the years just after World War II and a 42nd street changed to have all these kinds of things with a rough and dangerous atmosphere. Before WW II, 42nd Street and the whole Times Square area was mostly theaters with plays, musicals and bands performing nightly. These kinds of places never left the area but the block of 42nd Street between 7th & 8th Avenue (now it has the McDonalds, the two 25-screen movie theaters and "Mary Poppins") became run-down and taken over by the newer businesses.
Why? Well, American soldiers returning from Europe and Asia returned to the states and were exposed to pornography, different sexual habits and heroin (derived from battlefield morphine). Another reason is that outside this area in the city, there was no other place to buy drugs, meet a prostitute or meet other gay people. It is well known that the Mafia also controlled pornography and prostitution businesses with the help of crooked police officers.
So, during the 1930s, after the regular theaters shut their doors Mayor LaGuardia (he was a mayor before he was an airport) worked hard to keep the area safe with police patrols and vice squads. A vice enforcement unit or vice squad is a department in many police forces that investigates public order crimes. This generally includes narcotics, alcohol (including sales to minors), prostitution, pornography and gambling. During LaGuardia's time, especially, police conducted raids on places suspected of being involved in any of these things. Sometimes crooked cops would threaten real businesses with a raid on their place - which would scare off customers - unless they paid them off with a bribe.
Here is a story from the NY Post about how Vice Squads operate today with the internet
LaGuardia was followed by two more mayors who pretty much kept on doing the same thing. However by the mid-1950s, Mayor Wagner was too scared and just not aggressive enough to tighten it up and take control of the area. His hands-off attitude meant that all the bad business was "contained" (in theory anyway) to this one area to keep it from spreading to the rest of the city.
Here for a list of New York City mayors
By 1960, Times Square had become the prime area for all the things described in the novel. What we see in Times Square today is from the efforts of Mayor Giuliani to transform the area almost back to what it was before WW II: family entertainment.
A bit of New York City trivia for you: Times Square used to be called Longacre Square until The New York Times moved into 43rd Street (now they are on 8th Avenue & 41st Street) and convinced city leaders to re-name the area in the early 1900s.
The first chapter - when Rufus walks 42nd Street in desperation - describes all kinds of elements of "forty-deuce" that no longer exist today: bars, arcades, movie theaters showing Italian films, pornography shops (although these are sprinkled along 8th Avenue), prostitutes (male and female), heroin addicts and drug dealers.
The novel is set in the years just after World War II and a 42nd street changed to have all these kinds of things with a rough and dangerous atmosphere. Before WW II, 42nd Street and the whole Times Square area was mostly theaters with plays, musicals and bands performing nightly. These kinds of places never left the area but the block of 42nd Street between 7th & 8th Avenue (now it has the McDonalds, the two 25-screen movie theaters and "Mary Poppins") became run-down and taken over by the newer businesses.
Why? Well, American soldiers returning from Europe and Asia returned to the states and were exposed to pornography, different sexual habits and heroin (derived from battlefield morphine). Another reason is that outside this area in the city, there was no other place to buy drugs, meet a prostitute or meet other gay people. It is well known that the Mafia also controlled pornography and prostitution businesses with the help of crooked police officers.
So, during the 1930s, after the regular theaters shut their doors Mayor LaGuardia (he was a mayor before he was an airport) worked hard to keep the area safe with police patrols and vice squads. A vice enforcement unit or vice squad is a department in many police forces that investigates public order crimes. This generally includes narcotics, alcohol (including sales to minors), prostitution, pornography and gambling. During LaGuardia's time, especially, police conducted raids on places suspected of being involved in any of these things. Sometimes crooked cops would threaten real businesses with a raid on their place - which would scare off customers - unless they paid them off with a bribe.
Here is a story from the NY Post about how Vice Squads operate today with the internet
LaGuardia was followed by two more mayors who pretty much kept on doing the same thing. However by the mid-1950s, Mayor Wagner was too scared and just not aggressive enough to tighten it up and take control of the area. His hands-off attitude meant that all the bad business was "contained" (in theory anyway) to this one area to keep it from spreading to the rest of the city.
Here for a list of New York City mayors
By 1960, Times Square had become the prime area for all the things described in the novel. What we see in Times Square today is from the efforts of Mayor Giuliani to transform the area almost back to what it was before WW II: family entertainment.
A bit of New York City trivia for you: Times Square used to be called Longacre Square until The New York Times moved into 43rd Street (now they are on 8th Avenue & 41st Street) and convinced city leaders to re-name the area in the early 1900s.
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