The Latino Fan Club will soon bring you our first e-book about life on the street as a young Latin hustler in the 1970's. But until then, we present here a gallery of photos, thanks to Google Images, of what that turf looked like back then. Were you old enough to have experienced that scene? If so, please drop us an email with your comments to: latinofans@aol.com. And read "HUSTLER ON THE DEUCE" premiering soon right here!
42nd Street Scenes in the '70's
Above: 42nd St. at 7th Ave looking west, cheap exploitation movie "grindhouses", tourist trap shops, porno shops, fast food joints, all kinds of stores selling everything under the sun, and young men selling their bodies. (The girls' walked 8th, 9th Avenues) A few years later the boys moved their scene to the Port Authority at 8th Ave.
Between 7th and 8th Avenues, 42nd street was the entertainment center for middle and working class budgets. You could find almost anything here, from a Marshall Arts double bill movie, to a Museum of Oddities, a quick and cheap meal, or a quick sex encounter. Any kind of drug could be purchased and if you weren't vigilant, you could get ripped off in a blink of an eye... and never play 3-card monty-- don't you see the guy's shills?
Left: Looking uptown on 8th Ave. north-east corner at 42nd street around 1972. Every building in the photo, except for Hotel Manhattan has since been torn down and replaced by new buildings.

Above: Same corner, a couple of years later

Above: Toward the end of the '70's and into the '80's, the sleazy adventures continued with porn movie houses around the corner from 42nd street, on 8th avenue. A couple of gay movie houses along with the straight theatres. A lot of this action is written about in the new ebook HUSTER ON THE DEUCE, coming soon to this website.
Above: One of the movie theatres, in the middle of the block, shared lobby space with this 'soda fountain/fast food joint' for years. A NYC "landmark" long gone. How many johns picked up a sweet young hustler here?
BE SURE TO WATCH OUR VIDEO DOCUMENTARY "THE DEUCE - BACK IN THE DAY"