Programmed July 2024

Times Square

“Someday a real rain will come and wash all the scum off the streets . . .” Careful what you wish for! Before it hypergentrified into the ultimate emblem of New York City in the throes of late-capitalist excess, the old, unsanitized Times Square was a pungent playground of drama, danger, sin, and sleaze that embodied the untamed id of the city at its most extreme. It’s no wonder that it served as such a potent cinematic muse, providing the vivid backdrop for tales of weirdos, iconoclasts, outcasts, and lost souls navigating the daily adventure of life in the urban jungle. Hustlers ( Midnight Cowboy ), badass blaxploitation detectives ( Shaft ), runaway teenage punks ( Times Square ), sadistic giallo killers ( The New York Ripper ),…