Times Square Red, Times Square Blue 20th Anniversary Edition

by Samuel R. Delany

Book Overview

Twentieth anniversary edition of a landmark book that cataloged a vibrant but disappearing neighborhood in New York City

In the two decades that preceded the original publication of Times Square Red, Times Square Blue, Forty-second Street, then the most infamous street in America, was being remade into a sanitized tourist haven. In the forced disappearance of porn theaters, peep shows, and street hustlers to make room for a...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1479827770
• ISBN13: 9781479827770
• Release Date: April 2019
• Publisher: New York University Press
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.76 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.8" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Prelude and fugue

Samuel Delaney has done the near imposible - he has written a book that is both titillating and informing. Dividing his cogent 21st Century social philosophy into two parts is at first disconcerting: Why are we reading (buying) a book that lets us in on the gossip of firsthand observation of Times Square New York, then in a page turn becomes a sophisticated academic treatise on our current social problems, in the City, and in a Country? Once past this mirage of a hurdle Delaney makes it patently clear why he chose this format. If we are introduced to a problem in a seductive manner, we pay closer attention to the bigger issues. This superb little book is illuminating in its exploration of where we are in our interpersonal relationships, our interplay with those around us (street, neighborhood, city, country), and our current drive to homogenize our world. Beautifully written, immensely readable, and a very important contribution to our social perceptions!

An intelligent, touching book

I always thought of Samuel Delaney as a writer of science fiction, my least favorite genre, so this is my first book by him. I was impressed and delighted. The worst thing I can say about it is that Mr. Delaney has a love of dependent clauses strung along inside comma-copious sentences that were sometimes hard to read. But he has awesome insights too, and compassion and wisdom lace every page. Makes me wish I was old enough to partake of that culture.

Sex and the City

A remarkable book, with both the frankest discussion of people's sexual desires and needs of any book I've read in years, and a compelling argument about the crucial role places like the old Times Square play in the life of a city. A paeon to America's cities and an intimate history of a culture being destroyed. Delany's masterful prose makes this brief book a treat to read. A great stocking stuffer for the intellectually and sexually adventurous.

Wounding the autumnal city

Chip Delany, the writer/critic with the eight-inch... beard, has done it again. Two books in one, and both will give you lots to think about.The first ("warm") half is an account of the now-vanished culture of random sexual encounters that once flourished in the Times Square area, especially in the porno theaters: alternately funny and tragic, and quite authentic, as I can attest from my own visits to the Adonis in ancient times.The second ("cool") half is (indirectly) on the same subject: it's an essay dealing with the difference between "contact" and "networking" (I won't try to explain... read the book). Even though it never mentions the Internet by name, it says a lot about what the Internet is about, and what it's doing to us.