There used to be a peep show palace right here

June 5, 2019 by Dave

This worn sign, located just south of 8th Avenue on 42nd Street in New York City, is all that remains of Show World Center, at one time the most-popular peep show emporium in New York City. UntappedCities.com called it “The McDonald’s of Sex.” I give it more credit than that. It was the Disneyland of Sex. It was Disneyland for men, especially men who had just gotten off work, had hard-ons from looking at their sexy secretary or co-worker all day and needed to bust a nut before they hopped on the train or bus to go home.

As Robert Brenner at UntappedCities wrote, “Show World Center occupied the first four stories of a 12-story building, and had 22,000 square feet of retail space. It had something for everyone: X-rated films, peepshows, adult books, live sex acts—e.g., a woman who shot hardboiled eggs from her vajayjay into the audience, like a t-shirt cannon—and in-store appearances by name porn stars.”

One of those porn stars was Trinity Loren. Back in the mid-’80s, I took a show (that was the parlance) from big-busted, blonde Trinity on the second floor, the one with the peep show booths that had a window separating the customer from the girl. Trinity showed me her tits, talked dirty to me and me only and fucked her pussy with a variety of dildos.

Another time, on the third floor, the infamous Triple Treat Theater, I watched Kitten Natividad suck and fuck some guy. Yes, they had live sex on-stage back then. Another time, during a lezzie show, one of the girls inserted a string of anal beads deep inside her partner’s asshole and asked, “Anyone want to pull them out? Ten bucks.” I still regret not taking her up on the offer. If I remember correctly, nobody did. Can you imagine that? Ten bucks to pull anal beads out of a girl’s ass? Bargain!

I walked past that old Show World Center sign several weeks ago when I was in New York. Where once there were live nude girls on stage, now there’s a two-story Duane Reade drug store. Just what New York needs, another Duane Reade. I wondered if the customers I saw through the second floor window realized they were standing in the spots where dancers used to peek out from their booths and yell, “Need a mop!” Turning Show World Center into a so-called respectable establishment had to be a clean up job on the scale of Chernobyl. Wrote the website Vanishing New York, “for 40 years, Show World was here, smelling of bleach and orange-scented mop water, doing its service for New Yorkers, commuters, and tourists alike.”

Show World fell to New York’s oppressive zoning laws that turned 42nd Street and the surrounding area into a giant tourist trap. It’s a lot safer to walk down 42nd Street than it used to be, but it’s not nearly as much fun.

 

 

Tags: , , , , ,

Categories:

6 responses to “There used to be a peep show palace right here”

  1. Elliot James says:

    I saw Candy Samples in a live sex show at the Triple Treat Theater. She retired not long after that. Even though she was in her mid-50s, she was still built like a brick house.

  2. julian says:

    We had a smaller version in Boston, called “The Combat Zone.”
    In the early 90’s, a few Adult book stores/clubs still stood.
    I was at one, browsing DVD’s, and over heard a customer asking
    the Gangster-looking cashier, if his “stuff” came in, yet.
    The cashier said, “Yeah, but we gotta keep that in the back room, we
    can’t ring it up in the open.”

    All i could think was: I hope this place is just a front for drug deals, otherwise
    i don’t wanna know what kinda DVD’s that guy was picking up…

  3. Nick says:

    When I first heard about it, I should have gone to New York to partake of Show Wold and Harmony. Kitten Natividad, Lotta Topp, Candy Samples. It would have melted my young 19-22 year old mind. Well at least I saw Nikki Knockers and Pandora Peaks at clubs in VA and PA… (BTW – pictures, even great Score pictures, do NOT do Nikki justice.)

  4. Seth says:

    Awesome copy and story… Yes, NYC late 70s early/mid 80s, dicey, gritty and seedy…. Paradise.. Great reflection Dave…. Love it

  5. Big T says:

    I don’t know if you’ve watched it but The Deuce on HBO is a throwback to 70’s New York where there were porno theaters everywhere.

    • Dave says:

      I love The Deuce. This past season was great. It’s incredible how well they nailed the feeling, the grit and the grime, of New York in that era. Maggie Gyllenhaal is great although I don’t like her character (I get the willies whenever I see anyone trying to treat porn as art). The last episode of the season was heartbreaking.

      When I was a lot younger–maybe 25-30 years ago–I used to spend hours going from one peep show joint to another. There was one right on 42nd Street that was the sleaziest. You went downstairs, and there were these carousel-type viewing booths around a central stage. You’d put in your quarter or dollar, whatever, and a small window would come up, and you could feel up the girl through the window for a dollar or two. One of the episodes of The Deuce this season showed that; the guy’s hand got stuck in the little window!

      I also remember a movie theater where every half hour or so, the movie would stop and a girl and a guy would come on-stage with a portable mattress and fuck. Then the movie would start again.

      And, of course, The Harmony Theater…don’t get me started.

      As you can tell, I really liked N.Y. in the ’80s.